Issued under the authority of Publius Cornelius Sulla, this coin is recognized by many collectors as one of the quintessential Republican denarius. It depicts the helmeted head of Roma on the obverse and the goddess Victory driving a biga with the legend ROMA below. Issued only 60 years after the first Roman silver coin, it proclaims the wealth and power of the gens Cornelia. The Cornelians were at the time one of the most famous aristocratic families in Rome. Their fame was however slated to grow even greater, as Publius Cornelius Sulla’s grandson Lucius Cornelius Sulla would go on to be known as Sulla the Great when he emerged victorious in Rome’s first major civil war.