CNG 108, Lot: 583. Estimate $1000. Sold for $1900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Galba. AD 68-69. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.63 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa July AD 68-January AD 69. Laureate and draped bust right / Livia standing left, holding patera and scepter. RIC I 189; RSC 55a. EF, lightly toned. Wonderful portrait.

Ex Goldberg 41 (27 May 2007), lot 2782; Classical Numismatic Group 40 (4 December 1996), lot 1407.

He (i.e., Galba) showed marked respect to Livia Augusta, to whose favor he owed great influence during her lifetime and by whose last will he almost became a rich man; for he had the largest bequest among her legatees, one of fifty million sesterces. But because the sum was designated in figures and not written out in words, Tiberius, who was her heir, reduced the bequest to five hundred thousand, and Galba never received even that. (Suetonius 5.2)

The line of the Julio-Claudian emperors had died out with Nero, but the new emperor Galba still wished to demonstrate continuity with the dynasty that had ruled for the last century, via his close friendship with Livia.