Hadrian augustus, 117 – 138
Aureus 130-133, AV 21 mm, 7.27 g. HADRIANVS – AVG COS III P P Bare head l. Rev. HISPANIA Hispania reclining l., holding branch in r. hand and resting l. arm on rock behind; in front, rabbit. C 828. BMC 844. RIC II.3, 1530. Calicó 1273 (these dies). Very rare and in exceptional condition for the issue, undoubtedly among the finest specimens known. A spectacular portrait of excellent style struck on a very large flan. Good extremely fine

Ex Glendining 3 December 1929, 836; NFA XXII, 1989, 57; Stack’s December 1996, Price, 174 and NAC 38, 2007, 60 sales. From the A. Moretti collection.

Graded Ch AU* Strike 5/5 Surface 5/5, Fine Style, NCG certification number 6827744-005

Of all Rome’s provinces, Spain was perhaps the most Romanised. It had been won by the Romans through centuries of contests with Carthaginians and local Celt-Iberians and it proved to be one of the empire’s most useful possessions. Though Hadrian was born and raised in Rome, his father was a member of the Aelii, a Roman family which had prospered at Italica since the time of the Scipios, and his mother was from nearby Gades. The only evidence we have of Hadrian spending time at his family estates in Spain is in the year 90, just after he assumed his toga virilis. He spent less than a year there, during which he became involved in military training and no doubt continued to be tutored. Before the end of 90 Hadrian seems to have returned to Rome with the future emperor Trajan, who was preparing to assume the consulship on January 1, 91. When Hadrian’s father had died five years before, Trajan was appointed one of his wards, for he was a first cousin once removed who also hailed from two noble families of Italica, the Ulpii and the Traii. We have no good details about Hadrian’s brief stay in his ancestral homeland, but the fact that he did not visit Italica during his travels to Spain as emperor more than three decades later suggests that the young aristocrat considered his time in Italica uninspiring; indeed, while there we are told he indulged himself in hunting, perhaps to pass the boredom of provincial life.