Nerva’s Fisci Iudaici Sestertius

449, Lot: 584. Estimate $500. Sold for $1100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Nerva. AD 96-98. Æ Sestertius (33.5mm, 24.96 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 96. IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR P COS II DESIGN III P P, laureate head right / FISCI IVDAICI [CALVM]NIA SVBLATA, S C across field, palm tree. RIC II 72; Hendin 1603a; Banti 16. Brown patina, some porosity and marks. Fine.

David Hendin wrote, in his Guide to Biblical Coins, Fifth Edition, that “In all likelihood (this reverse type) celebrates Vespasian’s requirement of 71/2 CE that the annual didrachm Temple Tax, the Fiscus Iudaicus, be paid to Rome rather than to the Jewish Temple. This tax was extended to every Jew, male and female, from the age of three, and even to slaves of Jewish households. The proceeds were earmarked for the rebuilding of the Temple of Jupiter Opitimus Maximus Captiolinus in Rome, which had been destroyed in the last days of the Roman Civil War of 68-69>.”

“Thus, FISCI IVDAICI CALVMNIA SVBLATA (’the insult of the Jewish Tax has been removed’) would refer to Vespasian’s removal of the insult that prior to 71/2 the Jewish Temple Tax had been collected by Jews for their own use. After all, Romans considered themselves the only legitimate taxing authority within the empire, and the only rightful beneficiary of tax revenues.”

“In summary, the idea that this coin represents a Roman apology, or a Roman acknowledgment of its own callous behavior, must be abandoned” (p. 458).