298, Lot: 267. Estimate $100. Sold for $65. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Antoninus Pius. As Caesar, AD 138. AR Denarius (17mm, 3.08 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck under Hadrian, AD 138. Bare head right / Diana standing right, holding arrow and bow. RIC III 447a (Hadrian); RSC 1058. VF, toned.

Ex Robert O. Ebert Collection.

After the sudden death of Aelius Caesar on 1 January AD 138, Hadrian was left without a successor. T. Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Antoninus, an individual from a distinguished family and with a competent but not particularly noteworthy career, became Hadrian's new heir. Before Hadrian's own death seven months later, Antoninus was virtual emperor; thus, the transition of government easily passed into a reign which Gibbon recalled was "marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."