Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 901. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

TITUS. 79-81 AD. AR Denarius (3.49 gm). Struck January-July 80 AD. IMP TITVS CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M•, laureate head right / TR P IX IMP XV COS VIII P P, dolphin coiled around anchor. RIC II 26a; BMCRE 72; BN 62; RSC 309. Choice EF. Attractive portrait. ($500)

The short reign of Titus witnessed three major calamities. First, on 24 August 79 AD, only one month after his accession, was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which overwhelmed the towns and villas of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Oplontis. The following year, while still in Campania supervising the relief work , a devastating fire and epidemic of plague broke out in Rome. The above coin was minted in 80 AD, and, according to Mattingly, in BMC II, pp. lxxii-lxxiii, was part of a series commemorating the supplicatio and lectisternium voted by the Senate after the eruption. As part of the atonement ceremony to seek peace with heaven, sacred couches, pulvinaria, were arranged, each bearing attributes or emblems of the gods. In this particular case the dolphin and anchor represent Neptune.

In contrast, B. Damsky, in "The throne and curule chair types of Titus and Domitian," in SNR 74 (1995), pp. 59-70, after reviewing all the interpretations suggested by various scholars, theorized that this coin, and others minted at the same time, refers not to the ceremony following the eruption, but rather to the occasion for rejoicing and spectacles held in June 80 to inaugurate the completion and opening of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, later called the Colosseum after the colossus of Nero that stood close by.