Protection from the Pisonian Conspiracy

Triton XIV, Lot: 656. Estimate $7500. Sold for $55000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Nero. AD 54-68. AR Denarius (17mm, 3.47 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 64-65. NERO CAESAR AVGVSTVS, laureate head right / IVPPITER CVSTOS, Jupiter, naked to the waist, cloak around lower body, seated left on ornate throne, holding thunderbolt in right hand and long scepter in left. RIC I 53; WCN 57; RSC 119; BMCRE 74-6; BN 220-1. EF, attractive old cabinet toning. Bold portrait.

From the C.K. Collection. Ex Dr. John Jacobs Collection (Superior, 13 August 1995), lot 737; Numismatic Fine Arts XX (9 March 1988), lot 119; E. P. Nicolas Collection (Kampmann, 9 March 1982), lot 173.

This reverse type commemorates the protection of Nero from the Pisonian Conspiracy. Events of the years AD 64-65 defined the subsequent reputation of Nero as a cruel and self-indulgent ruler. In AD 64, a large section of central Rome burned; Nero's reputed singing of the destruction of Troy during the fire led to the later association of him "fiddling" as the city burned. Within the charred remains of the city's center, Nero constructed the Domus Aurea, or Golden House, so named because of the gilded tiles on its exterior. Nero's "excesses" resulted in a conspiracy to overthrow and replace him with Gaius Calpurnius Piso. Among the conspirators were many high-ranking members of Nero's court including Seneca the Younger, the poet Lucan, and Petronius, who called himself Nero's "arbiter of elegance." To Nero, the failure of a conspiracy made up of those so close to him could have been achieved only through divine intervention. As the king of the gods oversaw the security of the Roman state, Nero believed it was Jupiter the Guardian (Custos) who had saved him from harm.