800th Anniversary of Rome

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 911. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $2400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Domitian. AD 81-96. Æ As (11.02 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa 88-89 BC. IMP CAES DOMIT AVG GERM P M TR P VIII CENS PER P P, laureate head right / LVD SAEC FEC COS XIII, S C in exergue, Domitian standing left, sacrificing from patera in his right hand over lit and garlanded altar; citharist and tibiae player to left; hexastyle temple in background. RIC II 385a; BMCRE 434; BN 472. Near EF, dark green-brown patina. Finely detailed reverse.

Ex New York Sale IV (17 January 2002), lot 363.

The Ludi Saeculares of 88 AD were one of the few highlights of Domitian's principate, and the coin types celebrating them are among the most interesting of Domitian's coinage. Combining architectural and ritual motifs, the principal types appeared on his aes denominations, and commemorate most of the major events of the occasion. These inculde: the preparatory ceremony, the distribution of purifying elements (suffimenta) to the people; the sacrifice of the first night, of a black sheep and goat to the Fates; the second day's dictating to the matrons by the emperor of the prayer to Juno; and the third day's choral procession of unmarried young people in honor of Apollo and Diana. Some events that were depicted, as here, remain uncertain.