Daughter of Claudius and Messalina

362, Lot: 281. Estimate $1000. Sold for $1500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LYDIA, Sardis. Claudia Octavia. Augusta, AD 54-62. Æ (18mm, 6.12 g, 12h). Mindios, strategos for the second time. Struck under Nero, circa AD 60. Draped bust right, wearing wreath of grain ears / Demeter, holding torch in each hand, being drawn right by biga of serpents. RPC I 2999; BMC 125; Waddington 5245. VF, dark brown patina. Rare. Cf. to an example in CNG 96, lot 645, which brought a hammer of $5000 on an estimate of $500.

Beloved by the populace but hated by her husband, Claudia Octavia’s marriage to her stepbrother Nero was an unhappy one. When an affair with his mistress Poppaea Sabina resulted in pregnancy, Nero divorced Octavia and had her banished to the island of Pandateria on a false (and ironic) charge of adultery. The Roman population demanded her return, but she was soon after executed on the order of Poppaea.