Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 1444. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $460. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Domitian. As Caesar, AD 69-81. AR Denarius (3.11 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck under Titus, AD 80. Laureate head right / Crested Corinthian helmet on pulvinar. RIC II 271 (Titus); RSC 399a. EF, bright surfaces.

Commemorating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, which destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplonti, Titus ordered this issue to be struck in AD 80. The reverse clearly displays a pulvinar prepared for a lectisternium, the name given a sacrifice practiced originally at times of tremendous public distress.