Triton XX, Lot: 675. Estimate $5000. Sold for $5500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Nero. AD 54-68. AV Aureus (29mm, 7.23 g, 3h). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 65-66. NERO CAESAR AVGVSTVS, laureate head right / IANVM CLVSIT PACE P R TERRA MARIQ PARTA, temple of Janus with closed doors. RIC I 58; Calicó 409; BMCRE 64; Biaggi 224. Good VF, underlying luster.

From the Continental Collection.

The Temple of Janus was one of Rome’s most ancient centers of worship. It was said that Romulus had built it after he made peace with the Sabines, and that it was king Numa who decreed that its doors should be opened during times of war and shut during times of peace. In all of Roman history until the reign of Nero, the temple doors had been shut perhaps five or six times – once under king Numa, once at the end of the Second Punic War, three times under Augustus, and, according to Ovid, once under Tiberius.

With the close of the Parthian War in AD 63 it was decreed that the doors should again be closed. Nero marked the event with great celebrations and trumpeted his policy of peace by issuing a large and impressive series of coins. The inscription on this issue announces “the doors of Janus have been closed after peace has been procured for the Roman People on the land and on the sea.” The doors of the temple probably remained closed for less than a year, being opened again with the onset of strife in Judaea in 66.