Julia Augusta (Livia - mother of Tiberius) Æ Sestertius. Rome, AD 22-23. S P Q R IVLIAE AVGVST, elaborately ornamented carpentum drawn to right by two mules / TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVST P M TR POT XXIIII around large S•C. RIC I 51 (Tiberius); C. 6 (Livia); BMCRE 76 (Tiberius). 25.15g, 35mm, 3h.

Very Fine.

From the Vitangelo Collection.

Augustus provided in his will that on his death his third wife Livia would be adopted into the gens Julia and granted the honorific title Augusta. Though her son, the new emperor Tiberius, was growing weary of her presence when she recovered from serious illness in early AD 22, she was still beloved by the people and the Senate decreed a 'supplicatio' in her honour, an event in which a carpentum such as that depicted on the obverse of the present sestertius would be used. This was a particular honour and privilege as the use of carriages in the city was entirely forbidden during the whole of the republic, with only state-priestesses allowed to be conveyed in the carpentum in the public festal processions (Liv. V.25; Isid. Orig. XX.12).