Numismatica Ars Classica
Auction 132 30-31 May 2022
View prices realized
► Sale information
Find similar lots
Nero augustus, 54 – 68
Aureus 64-65, AV 7.37 g. NERO – CAESAR Laureate and bearded head r. Rev. AVGVSTVS – GERMANICVS Nero, radiate, standing facing, holding branch and Victory on globe. C 44. BMC 56. RIC 46. CBN 202. Calicó 402.
Rare and in exceptional condition for the issue. A bold portrait struck on an exceptionally
large flan, almost invisible marks on reverse, otherwise good extremely fine
In July AD 64, large sections of Rome were destroyed in a great fire that Nero blamed on Christians living in the city. He made a great show of punishing the supposed arsonists and instituted a fire code in order to prevent or at least reduce the severity of future fires. At the same time, he bought up a great deal of the freshly cleared urban area to erect a vast palace complex known as the Domus Aurea ("Golden House"). In the vestibule of the new palace, Nero ordered the architect Zenodorus to erect a roughly 120-foot-tall statue of himself. This monument to the emperor's vanity was commonly known as the Colossus Neronis ("Colossus of Nero"). After the suicide of Nero in 68 and the Year of the Four Emperors that followed, Vespasian had the statue moved near the site of the Flavian Amphitheater that he and Titus were constructing from the spoils of the Jewish War. Due to the proximity of the statue to the amphitheater, the latter came to be known as the Colosseum. The reverse of the present aureus depicts the colossal statue of Nero at the time of its construction in the Domus Aurea. It represents the Emperor wearing a radiate crown-perhaps partially to draw comparison with the famous Colossus of Rhodes, which represented Helios, the Greek sun-god. This detail proves the claims of Suetonius to be false concerning the Colossus Neronis. He reported that Vespasian tried to mask the statue as an image of the disgraced Nero by adding a radiate crown and renaming it as the Colossus Solis ("Colossus of the Sun"), but the reverse type here makes it very clear that it was intended to depict Nero as Sol from the very beginning. The Colossus of Nero is often thought to have been toppled in an earthquake or destroyed during the Visigothic sack of Rome. However, the ambiguous evidence of a poem by the English monk Bede the Venerable (673-735) has been used to suggest that the statue still stood in the seventh century.
View a video of this lot
Aureus 64-65, AV 7.37 g. NERO – CAESAR Laureate and bearded head r. Rev. AVGVSTVS – GERMANICVS Nero, radiate, standing facing, holding branch and Victory on globe. C 44. BMC 56. RIC 46. CBN 202. Calicó 402.
Rare and in exceptional condition for the issue. A bold portrait struck on an exceptionally
large flan, almost invisible marks on reverse, otherwise good extremely fine
In July AD 64, large sections of Rome were destroyed in a great fire that Nero blamed on Christians living in the city. He made a great show of punishing the supposed arsonists and instituted a fire code in order to prevent or at least reduce the severity of future fires. At the same time, he bought up a great deal of the freshly cleared urban area to erect a vast palace complex known as the Domus Aurea ("Golden House"). In the vestibule of the new palace, Nero ordered the architect Zenodorus to erect a roughly 120-foot-tall statue of himself. This monument to the emperor's vanity was commonly known as the Colossus Neronis ("Colossus of Nero"). After the suicide of Nero in 68 and the Year of the Four Emperors that followed, Vespasian had the statue moved near the site of the Flavian Amphitheater that he and Titus were constructing from the spoils of the Jewish War. Due to the proximity of the statue to the amphitheater, the latter came to be known as the Colosseum. The reverse of the present aureus depicts the colossal statue of Nero at the time of its construction in the Domus Aurea. It represents the Emperor wearing a radiate crown-perhaps partially to draw comparison with the famous Colossus of Rhodes, which represented Helios, the Greek sun-god. This detail proves the claims of Suetonius to be false concerning the Colossus Neronis. He reported that Vespasian tried to mask the statue as an image of the disgraced Nero by adding a radiate crown and renaming it as the Colossus Solis ("Colossus of the Sun"), but the reverse type here makes it very clear that it was intended to depict Nero as Sol from the very beginning. The Colossus of Nero is often thought to have been toppled in an earthquake or destroyed during the Visigothic sack of Rome. However, the ambiguous evidence of a poem by the English monk Bede the Venerable (673-735) has been used to suggest that the statue still stood in the seventh century.
View a video of this lot