Struck at Rome under the moneyer L. Plautius Plancus, this denarius pairs one of the most arresting obverse types in the Republican series with a reverse of striking mythological ambition. The year 47 BC fell in the thick of Caesar's civil war, with the dictator himself embroiled in the Alexandrian War in Egypt for much of the year before returning to deal with a mutiny of his legions in Campania and unrest fomented by Caelius and Milo in Italy; moneyers at Rome continued to strike coinage through this upheaval to meet the state's pressing military and financial needs. The obverse presents the facing mask of Medusa, her hair a tangle of writhing locks entwined with coiled serpents, rendered in a bold frontal composition rare among Republican coin types, which typically favored profile portraits; the gorgon's apotropaic power made her a natural choice for a moneyer eager to distinguish his issue. The legend L PLAVTIVS curls around the fearsome visage. The reverse carries the moneyer's cognomen PLANCVS above a dynamic image of Aurora, goddess of the dawn, flying to the right with a palm frond in hand as she reins in the four horses of the sun's chariot, a composition likely alluding to the Plautia gens' claimed association with the sun-god's cult, or perhaps a punning reference to the family name.