Caesar’s Comet

Caesar's Comet

Caesar’s Comet was interpreted by Romans as a sign of the deification of recently assassinated dictator, Julius Caesar. The comet approached Earth both inbound in mid-May and outbound in early August. At perihelion the comet had a solar elongation of 11 degrees and is hypothesized to have had an apparent magnitude of around −3.

About Caesar’s Comet in brief

Summary Caesar's CometCaesar’s Comet was interpreted by Romans as a sign of the deification of recently assassinated dictator, Julius Caesar. The comet approached Earth both inbound in mid-May and outbound in early August. At perihelion the comet had a solar elongation of 11 degrees and is hypothesized to have had an apparent magnitude of around −3. At magnitude −4 it would have been as impressive as Venus. As a result of the cometary outburst in late July, Caesar’s Comet is one of only five comets known to have a negative absolute magnitude ) and may have been the brightest daylight comet in recorded history. The Temple of Divus Iulius was built and dedicated by Augustus for purposes of fostering a \”cult of the comet\”. The earliest correlations to a comet occurred during the Secular Games of 17 BC when money maker Mquinius Sanquius fashioned coins with a comet over the head of a man and a star on the reverse.

One of the earliest correlations and earliest correlations of a comet and a man is with Sextus Pompey, whom Caesar’s name and face entirely representing his divinity and divinity. In later years Caesar’s star supplants the star of Sexty, whose face and face are entirely representing Caesar’s divinity, and on which coins are minted. The coins were minted about the time of Caesar’s assassination and thus probably would not have originally referred to his deification. About twenty years passed, however, before the star completed its transformation into a comet. Tracing the coinage from 44 BC through the developing rule of Augustus reveals the changing relationship of Julius Caesar to the Sidus IULium.