Heritage World Coin Auctions
Monthly Auction 271726 25 Jun 2017
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Sabina, wife of Hadrian (Augusta, AD 128-136/7). AR denarius. NGC Choice VF. Rome, AD 128. SABINA AVGVSTA HADRIANI AVG P P, draped bust of Sabina right, wearing stephane, hair plaited and coiled atop head / No legend, Vesta seated left, holding palladium and scepter. RIC 413a. RSC 85. Rare, with early Trajanic hairstyle! Broad flan, minor flan crack.
As Empress, Sabina accompanied Hadrian on many of his famous travels. Although Hadrian reportedly engaged in affairs with both sexes, he frowned on Sabina's extramarital friendships. In AD 122 he dismissed two courtiers for being overly familiar with her. One of these was the historian Suetonius, author of The Twelve Caesars; his loss of access to the imperial archives can is detectable in his later biographies. Sabina's close friend, the poetess Julia Balbilla, accompanied the royal couple to Egypt in AD 130, where she recorded their presence by inscribing five stanzas on the Colossi of Memnon in Thebes. Both Sabina and Balbilla were thus probably present when Hadrian's boy lover, Antinous, drowned in the Nile, plunging the emperor into extravagant grief. The tragedy seemed to kill Hadrian's wanderlust, and he and Sabina returned to their lavish villa in Tivoli, where they spent most of their remaining days. Sabina died late in AD 136 or early the following year, probably of natural causes (although there were inevitable rumors of poisoning and forced suicide), and Hadrian ordered her deification.
HID02901242017
Estimate: 200-280 USD
Sabina, wife of Hadrian (Augusta, AD 128-136/7). AR denarius. NGC Choice VF. Rome, AD 128. SABINA AVGVSTA HADRIANI AVG P P, draped bust of Sabina right, wearing stephane, hair plaited and coiled atop head / No legend, Vesta seated left, holding palladium and scepter. RIC 413a. RSC 85. Rare, with early Trajanic hairstyle! Broad flan, minor flan crack.
As Empress, Sabina accompanied Hadrian on many of his famous travels. Although Hadrian reportedly engaged in affairs with both sexes, he frowned on Sabina's extramarital friendships. In AD 122 he dismissed two courtiers for being overly familiar with her. One of these was the historian Suetonius, author of The Twelve Caesars; his loss of access to the imperial archives can is detectable in his later biographies. Sabina's close friend, the poetess Julia Balbilla, accompanied the royal couple to Egypt in AD 130, where she recorded their presence by inscribing five stanzas on the Colossi of Memnon in Thebes. Both Sabina and Balbilla were thus probably present when Hadrian's boy lover, Antinous, drowned in the Nile, plunging the emperor into extravagant grief. The tragedy seemed to kill Hadrian's wanderlust, and he and Sabina returned to their lavish villa in Tivoli, where they spent most of their remaining days. Sabina died late in AD 136 or early the following year, probably of natural causes (although there were inevitable rumors of poisoning and forced suicide), and Hadrian ordered her deification.
HID02901242017
Estimate: 200-280 USD