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Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXII  7-8 Oct 2021
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Lot 748

Estimate: 750 GBP
Price realized: 1500 GBP
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Trajan AR Denarius. Rome, AD 113-114. IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS VI P P, laureate and draped bust to right / S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI, Trajan's Column surmounted with statue of the Emperor; at base, two eagles. RIC II 292; BMCRE 454; Woytek 425v; RSC 558. 3.35g, 19mm, 7h.

Near Mint State; unusually complete and in exceptional condition, a fine example of this popular type.

Ex Numismatica Ars Classica AG, Spring Sale 2020, 25 May 2020, lot 991.

This reverse type depicts Trajan's Column, one of the most visible and iconic monuments of ancient Rome that survives today. Built to commemorate the Dacian campaign, and using the spoils of war, it was completed in AD 113 and featured on the coinage of that year and the next.

The continuous sculptural frieze that decorates the column, which illustrates the major campaigns of the war, would have been visible from the balconies of the buildings at the northern end of Trajan's Forum, and therefore easier to read than they are today from ground level. The column was originally capped by a statue of the Emperor, though with this having disappeared during the medieval period a bronze statue of St. Peter was placed there in 1587 by Pope Sixtus V, and remains there today.

After his death in AD 117, the Senate voted to place the ashes of Trajan and his wife Plotina in golden urns in the base of the column.
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