Trajan’s Bridge

172, Lot: 198. Estimate $300. Sold for $575. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Trajan. AD 98-117. Æ Sestertius (33mm, 23.72 g). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 107-111. Laureate bust right, slight drapery on far shoulder, with aegis / Arched bridge, consisting of two stories, with arch surmounted by quadriga at either end, spanning river; boat sailing below. RIC II 569; BMCRE 848; Cohen 542; Banti 261; Küthmann & Overbeck, Bauten Roms 120. VF, dark brown surfaces, porous.

From The John A. Seeger Collection.

This bridge is traditionally regarded as the great Danube bridge, constructed by Trajan to allow quick movement of his legions across the river into Dacia, in his campaign against Decebalus in AD 104-105. However, it has been pointed out that the depiction of the bridge on the coin does not match contemporary accounts, which describe an arched wooden bridge set on twenty stone piers sunk in the river bed. This is the bridge shown on Trajan’s Column. Alternative identifications have included the Pons Sublicius, the first bridge across the Tiber, and the Pons Cestius, also in Rome. However, there is no known connection between Trajan and these bridges. It is possible this is an idealized depiction of the bridge to represent Trajan’s conquests in Dacia, and only later was the true nature of the bridge known, when Trajan’s Column was erected in AD 113.