Escape from Troy on a Coin of Julius Caesar

This coin minted for Julius Caesar in 47/46 B.C.E. shows the hero Aeneas escaping from Troy, which the victorious Greeks were burning down. He carries his elderly father on his shoulder and the city’s wooden statue of the goddess Athena in his right hand. This myth was a famous example of the Roman value of faithfulness, a quality that Caesar wanted to claim for himself at the time, when he was still fighting other Romans for control of the state as the republic was being torn apart by the violent conflict among upper-class leaders. (bpk, Berlin / Muenzkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany / Art Resource, NY.)