Bold Titus Aureus

CNG 85, Lot: 872. Estimate $7500. Sold for $28000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Titus. As Caesar, AD 69-79. AV Aureus (19mm, 7.29 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck under Vespasian, AD 76. T CAESAR IMP VESPASIAN, laureate head right / COS V, heifer standing right. RIC II 857 (Vespasian); Calicó 733; NAC 49, 162 (same rev. die). Near EF, toned. Bold strike on both sides.

The reverse of this coin may derive from the type found on an uncertain, possibly eastern, mint aureus of Augustus. While the significance of that type or its connection to one of the four sculptures of heifers by the Greek sculptor Myron is open to discussion, Mattingly (BMCRE p. xxxviii) unquestioningly associated the reverse of this coin with the relocation by the emperor Vespasian of one of the statues from the Porticus Apollonis, where it had been placed by Augustus, to his new Temple of Peace two years before this coin was issued (Proc. Goth. VIII.21.11-14).