72, Lot: 96. Estimate $300. Sold for $230. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANTONINUS PIUS, as Caesar. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.21 gm). Struck 138 AD. Bare head right / Concordia standing left and leaning on column, holding patera and double cornucopiae. RIC II 449 (Hadrian); RSC 1060. Toned VF, light porosity on obverse.

After the sudden death of Aelius Caesar on 1 January 138 AD, Hadrian was left without a successor. T. Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Antoninus, an individual from a distinguished family and with a competent, if unnoteworthy, career, became Hadrian's new heir, because of the former's character, a reputation which earned him the eventual cognomen Pius. Before Hadrian's own death seven months later, Antoninus was virtual emperor; thus, the transition of government easily passed into a reign which Gibbon recalled was "marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."