In addition to the quote from Georgics 2.173-174, the obverse features a seated Vergil crowned with laurels with personified Roma behind him. The obverse also displays the goddess Caritas breastfeeding two children, accompanied by a shepherd and a man guiding an ox. This resonates with the agricultural themes of the poem from which the quotation is derived.

The reverse, featuring the text of Aeneid 6.851, shows Aeneas in conversation with his father Anchises in the Underworld. Aeneas and Anchises are depicted looking towards a group of men, some in toga, others in military uniform, some holding fasces. This evokes Anchises’ description of Rome’s future in the passage from which the quote is taken. The lower section of the reverse has the words vota bis millesima / feliciter together with both the year according to Christian and Fascist dating. This serves as a response to the Vergilian line on the reverse, showing that the Fascists kept the Roman imperial dictum in mind. The phrase vota bis millesima is strange, as the adjective millesimum is primarily used to signify ‘thousandth’, while it here must mean something closer to ‘lasting a thousand years’. It is possible that this use is influenced by the Italian where millesimo can be used in the sense of millennium.

The two Vergilian quotes were used extensively by the regime. For example, they feature on the stamps designed to celebrate Vergil’s anniversary, while Aeneid 6.851 was inscribed on several important buildings, including the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the Palazzo Senatorio on the Capitoline Hill, and at the Ministry of Public Education (For which, see Strobl 2012 and Nastasi 2019). Romagnoli, who later also produced the commemorative medal for the Bimillenario Augusteo (Augustan Bimillenary) in 1937, reused the phrasing Vota bis millesima feliciter there (Casolari 1996: XV.104).