Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 1177. Estimate $12500.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $16000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JULIUS NEPOS. Second Reign, 477-480 AD. AV Solidus (4.45 gm). Ravenna mint. D N (retrograde) IVL N(retrograde)E-POS P F AVG, diademed, helmeted, and cuirassed facing bust, holding spear and shield decorated with a horseman / VICTORI-A AVGGG, Victory standing left holding long voided cross; R-V/CONOB. RIC X 3243 var. (non-reverted letters; mintmark); Depeyrot -; Lacam 62 var. (same); DOCLR -. EF. Very rare issue; unpublished variety. (See color enlargement on plate 19.) ($12,500) 

From the William H. Williams Collection.

After the assassination of Valentinian III, the western Roman empire endured 20 years of chaos under a succession of ephemeral emperors, usurpers and puppet rulers. Nominally the appointee and co-ruler with the emperor at Constantinople, the Roman emperors were in fact at the mercy of the Germans, Goths and Huns who, as magistri militum, or Masters of Soldiers, held the true reins of power. Emperors were deposed at will; Petronius Maximus in 455, Avitus the following year, Majorian in 461, Libius Severus in 465, Anthemius in 472, Olybrius the same year, and Glycerius in 474. Only Majorian and Anthemius had the blessings of the monarch of the east. Glycerius, although a moderately successful ruler, was replaced by Julius Nepos, the nephew of Leo I, and ordained bishop of Salona. Nepos was unable to restore order in Italy, and Leo's death later in 474 left him in an exposed position. The magister militum Orestes elevated his own son Romulus (Augustulus) to the purple, and Nepos fled Ravenna, his last outpost in Italy, and into exile in Dalmatia. The presumptive emperor came to know intense frustration when, in 476, Orestes and Romulus were overthrown by Odoacer, who declared the western kingdom no longer required a separate emperor. Nepos's entreaties for his restoration were ignored, although Zeno expressed his sympathy, and urged Odaocer to allow him to return to Ravenna. In fact, the true last "Roman" emperor lived in exile until 480, when he was murdered, supposedly on the orders of the bishop of Salona, the same Glycerius who had been deposed by Nepos in 474! The rare coins of the second "reign" of Julius Nepos were struck by Odoacer in deference to the nominal emperor of the west, without granting him any temporal authority.