Recently I discovered many excellent coin photos on Flickr, distrubuted under CreativeCommon licences. The first one I would like to present is an aureus of Augustus, Joe Geranio's photo:

Julius Caesar standardized the weight of the aureus at 1/40 of a Roman pound (about 8 grams). This piece weights 7.78 g; the obverse shows the image of Augustus, the reverse depicts a wreath of oak leaves, called the corona civica a high military decoration in the Roman republic.

Augustus, one of the best known Roman emperor, reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD. During the Cantabrian Wars (29BC - 19BC) he conquered territories in northern Hispania, which will furnish the Empire with gold for centuries, due to the large deposits found at Las Medulas. It is no wonder that many of the contemporary coins were minted at Emerita, in ancient Spain, just like this one.