Lustrous Aelius Aureus

CNG 85, Lot: 909. Estimate $30000. Sold for $35000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Aelius. Caesar, AD 136-138. AV Aureus (19mm, 7.36 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck under Hadrian, AD 137. L • AELIVS CAESAR, bare head right / TRIB POT COS II, Pietas standing right, holding acerra and raising hand over lighted and garlanded altar to right. RIC II 442 (Hadrian); Calicó 1452. EF, lustrous, tiny scrape on obverse edge at 11 o’clock. High relief portrait.

L. Ceionius Commodus, grandson and son of the consuls of AD 78 and 106, brother of Faustina Senior, was born about AD 104. He was praetor in AD 130, and in AD 136 he celebrated his first consulship. That same year Hadrian adopted L. Ceionius Commodus, who took the name of Lucius Aelius Caesar. On 1 January AD 137, he began his second consulship and it was at this time that he began to participate in the coinage. Unfortunately, Aelius predeceased Hadrian, dying of a massive hemorrhage on New Year's Day AD 138. Hadrian subsequently adopted Antoninus Pius as his new heir, on the condition that Pius likewise adopt Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the latter being the son of Aelius and Domitia Lucilla.