Anonymous. Didrachm 269-266 BC, Rome. Diademed head of Herakles right with club and lion skin / Shewolf right, head turned back, suckling twins Romulus and Remus. In exergue, ROMAN[O]. 7,06g. BMCRR Romano-Campanian 28; Crawford 20/1; RSC 8. A beautiful specimen. Extremely fine. Provenance: Count Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoi Collection (1858-1916), Hess (11 March 1912), 586. Sternberg XXII (20-21 November 1989), 166. Privately purchased from Tradart in 2008. Baron Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Crawford places the beginnings of Roman silver coinage in 269–268 BC. Among the earliest didrachm issues, he identifies this type as the first to display imagery that is unmistakably Roman in character. The reverse seems to reproduce the statue set up in 269 BC by the curule aediles and brothers Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius at the foot of the Palatine Hill, and the head of Hercules on the obverse may represent Hercules Victor — an especially fitting choice for a coinage produced from the wealth acquired after Rome’s victories over Pyrrhus. In this light, the type stands not merely as a monetary innovation but as a visual affirmation of Rome’s military success and its emerging civic identity.