Hadrian’s Travels

CNG 85, Lot: 901. Estimate $1000. Sold for $675. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Hadrian. AD 117-138. Æ Sestertius (32mm, 27.50 g, 6h). Travel series. Rome mint. Struck circa AD 134-138. Laureate and draped bust right / HISPANIA, Hispania reclining left holding branch and resting elbow on rock; rabbit right before. RIC II 851 var. (cuirassed); Banti 448. VF, two-tone red-brown patina, a patch of red on central reverse.

Between the years AD 119 and 136, the emperor Hadrian travelled throughout the Roman Empire, visiting various provinces to take stock of his inheritance and calm the disquiet which had arisen in the later years of Trajan's reign. His travels can be divided into two major episodes. The first tour was designed to shore-up Rome's northern borders and began sometime around AD 119 when Hadrian first visited the provinces of Gaul and Germania Inferior and Superior. The emperor then crossed the Channel to Britannia where, during his stay, construction began on a seventy-three-mile long wall across the north of the province, known to this day as Hadrian's Wall. In AD 122-123, Hadrian spent time in Hispania, then travelled east to Asia Minor. The remainder of this first tour was spent in the Balkans and Greece, touring such areas as Dacia and Achaea, before returning to Rome, via Sicily, in AD 126. Hadrian's second tour began in AD 128, when he set out on a short tour of the provinces of Africa and Mauretania. Returning for a brief stay in Rome, in AD 130 Hadrian then went again to Asia Minor, and continued into Syria, Judaea, Palestine, and, finally, Egypt. The bar-Kochba revolt in Judaea forced Hadrian to remain in the region until AD 135. In AD 136 Hadrian returned to Italia, ending his long travels.

To commemorate these travels, Hadrian issued a variety of types in multiple denominations relating to each of the provinces he visited. It is likely that Hadrian's travel series coins were struck after Hadrian concluded his journeys. Although many cataloguers date the various travel coins to the date he visited a particular province, most scholarly treatments of his reign date them all to the last part of his reign: RIC places them circa AD 134-138, BMCRE places them circa AD 135-138, while Hill (P.V. Hill, "The Dating and Arrangement of Hadrian's 'COS III' Coins of the Mint of Rome" in Essays Baldwin) dates them to AD 136-137 (with these two Judaean types in AD 136).