Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXIII 24-25 Mar 2022
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Vespasian AV Aureus. Lugdunum, AD 71. IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG TR P, laureate head to right / IVDAEA DEVICTA, Judaea, with hands tied together, standing to left against palm-tree. RIC II.1 1119 = Biaggi 326 = Calicó 647 = V.J.E. Ryan Collection (Glendining, 1952), lot 1684 = Künker 280, lot 541; Hendin GBC 6, 6502 (forthcoming); Hendin GBC 5, 1474. 7.22g, 18mm, 7h.
Near Very Fine. Of the greatest rarity, only the second known example of this immensely desirable IVDAEA type, with the single other known specimen having sold at auction in 2016 for 300,000 EUR.
From the Pinewood Collection.
For 25 years coins celebrating the capture of Judaea - the defining achievement of the Flavian dynasty - were issued in bronze, silver and gold by mints in the capital and throughout the empire under Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian. They were issued in every denomination, and at least 48 different types are known.
After the violent civil wars following the death of Nero in AD 68, from which the experienced general Vespasian emerged victorious, the hard-fought pacification of Judaea marked an end to internal conflict and broadcast a clear message that the supreme power of the Roman state, under the capable rule of Vespasian, was secure. Vespasian and Titus celebrated a joint triumph in AD 71, after which the emperor boldly closed the gates of the Temple of Janus to signify that, after some turbulent years, Pax Romana again prevailed throughout the Roman world.
The portrait of Vespasian here shows an experienced general with a robust build, stern gaze and determined expression, his close-cropped simple military haircut the perfect antidote to the voluminous decadent curled hairstyle favoured by Nero. We can read into this battle-hardened portrait the hugely devastating nature of the campaign against the Jewish revolt, which cost the lives of twenty five thousand Roman soldiers and somewhere between two hundred and fifty thousand and one million Jewish civilians. This particular and more unusual reverse legend IVDAEA DEVICTA reinforces the devastating nature of the conflict, the prefix 'de' intensifying the common word 'victa' to mean 'conquered completely'.
The reverse type features a female personification of Judaea, her hands tied as if to be led into slavery, in a defeated pose with her head bowed, against the backdrop of a palm tree indicative of the natural riches of the province. Both of these sights would have been familiar to citizens of Rome, who were spectators to the magnificent joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus in AD 71 which saw a large number of captives paraded through the streets of the capital, and indeed modern scholarship assumes that captives were staged as personifications of Judaea like that on this coin (Ida Ostenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession, p. 225). They were exhibited alongside with the treasures and spolia taken during the sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple, and commodities taken from the province. The historian Flavius Josephus, who observed the triumph, recorded with great awe "now it is impossible to describe the multitude of the shows as they deserve; and the magnificence of them all: such indeed as a man could not easily think of, as performed either by the labour of workmen, or the variety of riches, or the rarities of nature". (Jewish Wars VII, 5, 132 ff.)
Near Very Fine. Of the greatest rarity, only the second known example of this immensely desirable IVDAEA type, with the single other known specimen having sold at auction in 2016 for 300,000 EUR.
From the Pinewood Collection.
For 25 years coins celebrating the capture of Judaea - the defining achievement of the Flavian dynasty - were issued in bronze, silver and gold by mints in the capital and throughout the empire under Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian. They were issued in every denomination, and at least 48 different types are known.
After the violent civil wars following the death of Nero in AD 68, from which the experienced general Vespasian emerged victorious, the hard-fought pacification of Judaea marked an end to internal conflict and broadcast a clear message that the supreme power of the Roman state, under the capable rule of Vespasian, was secure. Vespasian and Titus celebrated a joint triumph in AD 71, after which the emperor boldly closed the gates of the Temple of Janus to signify that, after some turbulent years, Pax Romana again prevailed throughout the Roman world.
The portrait of Vespasian here shows an experienced general with a robust build, stern gaze and determined expression, his close-cropped simple military haircut the perfect antidote to the voluminous decadent curled hairstyle favoured by Nero. We can read into this battle-hardened portrait the hugely devastating nature of the campaign against the Jewish revolt, which cost the lives of twenty five thousand Roman soldiers and somewhere between two hundred and fifty thousand and one million Jewish civilians. This particular and more unusual reverse legend IVDAEA DEVICTA reinforces the devastating nature of the conflict, the prefix 'de' intensifying the common word 'victa' to mean 'conquered completely'.
The reverse type features a female personification of Judaea, her hands tied as if to be led into slavery, in a defeated pose with her head bowed, against the backdrop of a palm tree indicative of the natural riches of the province. Both of these sights would have been familiar to citizens of Rome, who were spectators to the magnificent joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus in AD 71 which saw a large number of captives paraded through the streets of the capital, and indeed modern scholarship assumes that captives were staged as personifications of Judaea like that on this coin (Ida Ostenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession, p. 225). They were exhibited alongside with the treasures and spolia taken during the sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple, and commodities taken from the province. The historian Flavius Josephus, who observed the triumph, recorded with great awe "now it is impossible to describe the multitude of the shows as they deserve; and the magnificence of them all: such indeed as a man could not easily think of, as performed either by the labour of workmen, or the variety of riches, or the rarities of nature". (Jewish Wars VII, 5, 132 ff.)