247, Lot: 275. Estimate $2000. Sold for $2000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Nero. AD 54-68. Æ Sestertius (35mm, 28.14 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 64. Laureate head left / Annona standing right, holding cornucopia, facing Ceres seated left, holding grain ears and torch; modius on garlanded altar between them, stern of ship in background. RIC I 142; WCN 92. Good VF, green surfaces with areas of red, smoothed and tooled, patches of fill.

In order to endear himself, Nero granted many largesses to the common people in the form of congiaria---typically personified by Annona, a provision for one year usually in the form of grain, and by Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and a representation of the grain itself.