Crawford 314/1c, Roman Republic, 105 BC., moneyer Lucius Aurelius Cotta, Denarius serratus

Roman Republic (Rome mint 105 BC.), moneyer Lucius Aurelius Cotta.
AR Denarius serratus (3,96 g, 18-19 mm), axis about coin alignment ?? (ca. 160°),
Obv.: Bust of Vulcan right, draped and wearing cap with laurel-wreath, with tongs over shoulder; behind value marc XVI (in monogram); no control-mark below chin; all within myrtle wreath.
Rev.: Eagle on a bundle of thunderbolts right; below, L•COT; control-mark Q to r., all within laurel-wreath.
Crawford 314/1c ; Syd. 577 a ; BMCRR Rome 1305 ; RSC Aurelia 21b .
same dies as Heidelberger Münzhandlung Herbert Grün Auction 85, lot 103 (14-16 Nov 2022) ( https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=10163504 )

Vulcan is the god of the underworld and blacksmiths. He is also the protective god who presides over the manufacture of coins. For this type, there are several ways to mark the coins. The letters can be placed on the obverse or on the reverse and in some cases on both sides. The right recalls that Caius Aurelius Cotta, ancestor of the moneyer, seized Lipara while he was consul in 252 BC during the First Punic War. Vulcan was represented on the coinage of the island. The reverse is linked to the law: the consul Caius Aurelius Cotta received the Triumph for this brilliant action. According to Crawford, Lucius Aurelius Cotta was Tribune of the Plebs in 103 BC and may have been Praetor in 95 BC.
The year 105 in Roman History was remembered by the disaster suffered by the Roman army near Orange (Arausio). Quintus Servilius Caepio (consul 106 BC) and Cn. Mallius Maximus (consul in 105 BC) were defeated by the allied tribes of Cimbri and Teutons.
During the southern migration of the Cimbri and Teutons in 105 BC, Caepio was assigned an army to defeat the migrating tribes. Also tasked to defeat the Cimbri was the consul for that year, Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, who was a novus homo ("new man"). While the sitting consul outranked Caepio, Caepio refused to cooperate with the consul and his army. Leading one of the two Roman armies into the Battle of Arausio, this refusal to cooperate with his superior officer, led to the destruction of both armies. Caepio refused to camp with Maximus and his troops; when the battle began, both Roman armies were overrun and defeated by the massively numerically superior Cimbri force, resulting in the deaths of many thousand Roman soldiers.