Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XX 29-30 Oct 2020
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Trajan AV Aureus. Rome, AD 107-108. IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust to right / COS V P P S P Q R OPTIMO PRINC, Hercules standing to left, holding club and lion's skin in left hand, with right hand pouring libation from a cup over lighted and garlanded altar. RIC 112 var. (not cuirassed); C. 67 var. (not cuirassed); BMCRE 263 var. (wearing aegis); Woytek 263f; BN 250 var. (wearing aegis); Calicó 999. 7.28g, 19mm, 6h.
Mint State; almost invisible edge marks
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Numismatica Genevensis SA, Auction 7, 27 November 2012, lot 361;
Ex LHS Numismatik AG, Auction 97, 10 May 2006, lot 18;
Ex Adolph Hess AG - Bank Leu AG, Auction 19, 12 April 1962, lot 458.
After the peaceful but politically strained rule of the aged Nerva, the seamless transition of power into the hands of a popular general who was already named Caesar and a serving consul when the emperor passed must have seemed like nothing less than a total (and near miraculous) rejuvenation of the principate. Indeed, the early years of the reign of Trajan were hailed as the beginning of a new golden age, a time of peace and prosperity which would last for nearly a century until the megalomania of Commodus and his ruinous fiscal policies wrought an inevitable return to civil war and economic decline.
The aurei of Trajan, like those of his predecessor Nerva, are most difficult to find in such exemplary condition. This is on account of the predominantly peaceful state of affairs within the Roman territories at this time, and the economic stability this conferred. There was consequently very little hoarding of newly-minted coins as is associated with times of uncertainty or war.
Trajan was the first of the Roman emperors to depict the figure and attributes of Hercules on his coinage. This was perhaps on account of Trajan having been born in Italica in southern Spain where Hercules was particularly venerated as Hercules Gaditanus (the name pertaining to the temple to Hercules outside the Phoenician city of Gadir on the southern coast of Spain), but comparing great Roman statesmen to Hercules had become all but commonplace since the Late Republic: Sulla sought the hero's proximity by dedicating a public feast to his name (Plut. Sulla 35), Augustus was likened to him by Horace when he returned from a victorious campaign in Spain (carm. 3.14) and Martial praised the unity of Hercules and Domitian in dealing with the people's requests (9.64-65). With Trajan, this tradition took on a new dimension. The two great orators of his time both directly identify the emperor with Hercules (Dio Chrysostom, On Kingship A, 84; Pliny, Panegyricus, 14.5), and the Arval Brothers (a college of Roman priests) invoke him when Trajan leaves for Dacia, in AD 101 (C.I.L. 6.2074.67).
Lacking a clear source for the representation, this rare aureus is best understood within the context of this close association Trajan enjoyed and actively cultivated between himself and Hercules. A series of quadrantes struck under Trajan make the same equation, depicting Hercules in the place of the emperor on the obverse, alongside his imperial titles (RIC 698, 700-2). In another numismatic representation, the column celebrating Trajan's victory over the Dacians is depicted in the form of a club resting on a lionskin pedestal (see RIC 581, pl. XI, 202), likening the emperor's triumph to a Herculean labour. A statue in the collection of the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome makes the association most clear, depicting Trajan as Hercules-Silvanus, draped with a lionskin in much the same manner as Hercules depicted on the aureus presented here (for further discussion, see O. J. Hekster, Propagating power: Hercules as an example for second-century emperors in Herakles and Hercules, 2003, pp. 20-35).
Mint State; almost invisible edge marks
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Numismatica Genevensis SA, Auction 7, 27 November 2012, lot 361;
Ex LHS Numismatik AG, Auction 97, 10 May 2006, lot 18;
Ex Adolph Hess AG - Bank Leu AG, Auction 19, 12 April 1962, lot 458.
After the peaceful but politically strained rule of the aged Nerva, the seamless transition of power into the hands of a popular general who was already named Caesar and a serving consul when the emperor passed must have seemed like nothing less than a total (and near miraculous) rejuvenation of the principate. Indeed, the early years of the reign of Trajan were hailed as the beginning of a new golden age, a time of peace and prosperity which would last for nearly a century until the megalomania of Commodus and his ruinous fiscal policies wrought an inevitable return to civil war and economic decline.
The aurei of Trajan, like those of his predecessor Nerva, are most difficult to find in such exemplary condition. This is on account of the predominantly peaceful state of affairs within the Roman territories at this time, and the economic stability this conferred. There was consequently very little hoarding of newly-minted coins as is associated with times of uncertainty or war.
Trajan was the first of the Roman emperors to depict the figure and attributes of Hercules on his coinage. This was perhaps on account of Trajan having been born in Italica in southern Spain where Hercules was particularly venerated as Hercules Gaditanus (the name pertaining to the temple to Hercules outside the Phoenician city of Gadir on the southern coast of Spain), but comparing great Roman statesmen to Hercules had become all but commonplace since the Late Republic: Sulla sought the hero's proximity by dedicating a public feast to his name (Plut. Sulla 35), Augustus was likened to him by Horace when he returned from a victorious campaign in Spain (carm. 3.14) and Martial praised the unity of Hercules and Domitian in dealing with the people's requests (9.64-65). With Trajan, this tradition took on a new dimension. The two great orators of his time both directly identify the emperor with Hercules (Dio Chrysostom, On Kingship A, 84; Pliny, Panegyricus, 14.5), and the Arval Brothers (a college of Roman priests) invoke him when Trajan leaves for Dacia, in AD 101 (C.I.L. 6.2074.67).
Lacking a clear source for the representation, this rare aureus is best understood within the context of this close association Trajan enjoyed and actively cultivated between himself and Hercules. A series of quadrantes struck under Trajan make the same equation, depicting Hercules in the place of the emperor on the obverse, alongside his imperial titles (RIC 698, 700-2). In another numismatic representation, the column celebrating Trajan's victory over the Dacians is depicted in the form of a club resting on a lionskin pedestal (see RIC 581, pl. XI, 202), likening the emperor's triumph to a Herculean labour. A statue in the collection of the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome makes the association most clear, depicting Trajan as Hercules-Silvanus, draped with a lionskin in much the same manner as Hercules depicted on the aureus presented here (for further discussion, see O. J. Hekster, Propagating power: Hercules as an example for second-century emperors in Herakles and Hercules, 2003, pp. 20-35).