★ A Striking Portrait of Vespasian ★

ROMAN EMPIRE. Vespasian.
Gold Aureus, AD 77-78. Rome.
Obv: IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG, laureate head left. Rev: Emperor standing left, holding spear and parazonium, crowned by Victory standing behind, holding wreath and palm; COS VIII in exergue.

Good Extremely Fine; highly lustrous, with a striking portrait.

Vespasian was not one for pretence; he despised the extravagant displays of luxury that had defined the reigns of his predecessors. Instead, he revelled in the simple pleasures of life, often jesting about his own mortality - as revealed by Suetonius in his The Twelves Caesars - and the follies of human ambition. Vespasian understood the importance of restoring stability to an empire ravaged by the Civil War of 69, and he approached this task with a soldier’s discipline and a leader’s foresight. His pragmatism was not devoid of empathy; he governed with a keen sense of justice, tempering the harshness of Roman law with a humanity that had been absent in the corridors of power for far too long. Vespasian’s legacy, therefore, is one of a man who, in his unadorned strength and understated wisdom, brought Rome back from the brink of chaos, not with grandiose proclamations, but with the steady, assured hand of a true ruler.

Ex Classical Numismatic Group, Triton XXVI (10/1/2023), lot 730.

Reference: RIC II.1-936; BMCRE-205; Biaggi-318 (same rev. die); Calicó-625.
Die Axis: 6h.
Diameter: 19 mm.
Weight: 7.34 g.