The Roman Empire
Claudius, 41 – 54
Aureus circa 50-54, AV 7.62 g. [TI CLA]VD CAESAR AVG GERM P M TRIB POT P P Laureate head of Claudius r. Rev. NERO CLAVD CAES DRVSVS GERM PRINC IVVENT Bareheaded and draped bust of Nero l. C 4. BMC Claudius 79. RIC Claudius 82. CBN Claudius 85. Calicó 391b.
Very rare and in exceptional condition for the issue. Two magnificent portraits
well struck in high relief on a full flan, good extremely fine Ex Ratto fixed price list February 1969, 5 and NAC sale 52, 2009, 340.

A particularly nice coin and a nice mate to the following issue of the same type in silver. MSG.

The closing years of the reign of Claudius are defined by the poor choices he made about his personal life, which had profound effects upon the state. Perhaps worst of all was his decision in 48 to marry his niece Agrippina Junior, a woman who possessed few virtues beyond a calculating intellect and blinding ambition. Along with Agrippina came her son from a former marriage, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who early in A.D. 50 was adopted by Claudius and took the name Nero. The likely explanation for this marriage is Claudius’ inability to judge the character of women, though he may also have deemed it necessary to stabilise his regime. Of the four women Claudius married, he divorced the first three: one because she was the sister of the defamed Sejanus, and the other two because of their adulterous affairs and apparent plans to murder him. His fourth and final marriage, to Agrippina, occurred just months after he had ordered the execution of his third wife, Valeria Messalina. The new union was unorthodox, and required a change in the laws governing such affairs, which prohibited uncles from marrying their brothers’ daughters. The domineering presence of Agrippina changed the complexion of Claudius’ regime, as her top priority was the advancement of Nero, even above his biological son Britannicus. Upon seeing this aureus, no one could have doubted that Nero was destined to succeed Claudius. It likely was struck in 51, not long after Nero had been adopted by Claudius, and in the same year that he assumed the toga virilis, the ‘toga of manhood’ months before the proscribed age. Moreso, it shows the effectiveness of Agrippina, who two years later would secure the marriage of Nero to Claudius’ elder daughter, Claudia Octavia, despite her longstanding betrothal to a distant cousin, Lucius Junius Silanus.