438, Lot: 486. Estimate $300. Sold for $360. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Vitellius. AD 69. AR Denarius (17mm, 3.17 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa late April-20 December. Laureate head right / Libertas standing facing, head right, holding pileus and vindicta. RIC I 105; RSC 47. VF, lightly toned, cleaning marks and scratches.

According to A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins by John Melville Jones, the vindicta which Libertas carries was “the rod with which a slave was touched during the ceremony of manumission or liberation.”