Gemini, LLC
Auction X 13 January 2013
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Vespasian. 69-79 AD. Sestertius, 24.30g. (6h). Rome, 71 AD. Obv: IMP CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M TR P P P COS III Head laureate right. Rx: S - C Front view of temple of Isis, showing four columns, on podium of five steps; between the columns, at entrance to an inner shrine, is a statue of Isis, standing front, holding patera; to the right and left of the steps statues standing on low bases; above, a semicircular pediment, with elaborate ornamentation above; within it, Isis on dog running right. RIC 204 (R2). Paris 537, pl. XLVIII (same dies). Cohen 485 (40 Fr.). Kraay, unpublished die catalogue, 210 (A47/P39). Cf. BM 780, pl. 35.3 (same rev. die, obv. VESPASIANVS). This is one of the best preserved of only about a dozen recorded specimens of this extraordinary architectural type. EF.
A rare type, known only from this single sestertius reverse die. Kraay found this reverse die coupled with (a) three obverse dies of Vespasian's first sestertius issue of 71 (legend with VESPASIANVS, six specimens), and (b) one obverse die of his second sestertius issue of the year (with VESPASIAN, four specimens, all from the same dies as our coin). A composite bust of Isis had appeared on the Republican denarius Crawford 409/1, but Egyptian religions at Rome were suppressed by Augustus and Tiberius, and this is the first type celebrating an Egyptian deity to appear in the Roman imperial coinage. Why the type was chosen, however, is uncertain. The traditional explanation, that the type commemorates Vespasian's spending of the night before his Jewish triumph of June 71 in the Temple of Isis on the Campus Martius at Rome, has been refuted by Kraay's analysis of the sestertius coinage of 71, which showed that this type must have been struck c. March-April 71, at the end of the year's first and the beginning of the year's second issue of sestertii, so several months before Vespasian celebrated his triumph.
A rare type, known only from this single sestertius reverse die. Kraay found this reverse die coupled with (a) three obverse dies of Vespasian's first sestertius issue of 71 (legend with VESPASIANVS, six specimens), and (b) one obverse die of his second sestertius issue of the year (with VESPASIAN, four specimens, all from the same dies as our coin). A composite bust of Isis had appeared on the Republican denarius Crawford 409/1, but Egyptian religions at Rome were suppressed by Augustus and Tiberius, and this is the first type celebrating an Egyptian deity to appear in the Roman imperial coinage. Why the type was chosen, however, is uncertain. The traditional explanation, that the type commemorates Vespasian's spending of the night before his Jewish triumph of June 71 in the Temple of Isis on the Campus Martius at Rome, has been refuted by Kraay's analysis of the sestertius coinage of 71, which showed that this type must have been struck c. March-April 71, at the end of the year's first and the beginning of the year's second issue of sestertii, so several months before Vespasian celebrated his triumph.