Watch List notes:

The Roman Empire
Vespasian, 69 – 79

Aureus, Lugdunum circa 70, AV 7.39 g. IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG TR P Laureate head r. Rev. COS ITER – TR POT Neptune standing l., r. foot on prow, holding dolphin in extended r. hand and trident in l. C 92. BMC 374. RIC 1109. CBN 290. Calicó 611 (this coin illustrated).
Rare. Well struck and centred on a full flan, light reddish tone and extremely fine


Ex Glendining's sale November 16-21 1950, Platt Hall II, 1155. From the Biaggi collection.
Both historians and citizens openly criticised Vespasian – the son of a man who made a fortune as a tax collector in Asia, and later as a Swiss banker – for his stinginess, but this proved to be an essential quality for an emperor in his troubled times. Suetonius (Vesp 16.3) reports that Vespasian claimed he needed 400 million aurei (10 billion denarii) to "...put the country back on its feet again". As a result of his close attention to finance, Vespasian struck aurei in large quantities, and unlike most of his predecessors, he employed a wide variety of reverse types. For generations researchers have recognised that many of Vespasian's reverse types recall types from earlier reigns, most especially those from the age of Augustus. Attempts have been made to connect his 'Augustan' types with the centenaries of the Battle of Actium (ending in 70) and the 'foundation' of the empire (ending in 74), but all seem to have failed, as the relevant types are strewn throughout Vespasian's ten-year reign. It is perhaps better to view his recycling of types as a political strategy favoured by Vespasian and Titus, but subsequently abandoned by Domitian. In this case we have a depiction of the sea-god Neptune that certainly is derived from Octavian's pre-Imperial coinage struck in commemoration of Actium.