Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 1445. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $1200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN. 117-138 AD. Æ Sestertius (25.77 gm). Struck circa 120-122 AD. Laureate bust right, drapery on left shoulder / Three citizens standing right raising hands in acclamation before lictor standing left, holding torch and fasces, alighting heap of tax receipts at feet. RIC II 592b; BMCRE 1207; Cohen 1212. VF, olive-green patina with dusty earthen undertones. ($1000)

To promote his popularity, Hadrian cancelled debts and burned promissory notes in a general amnesty for tax arrears, the event this sestertius commemorates. The reverse depicts either Hadrian himself or a lictor applying a torch to a heap of documents (sungrafoi) symbolizing the debts being cancelled. The burning occurred in Trajan’s Forum, where Hadrian erected a monument inscribed “the first of all principes and the only one who, by remitting nine hundred million sesterces owed to the fiscus, provided security not merely for his present citizens but also for their descendants by this generosity."

The legend RELIQVA VETERA HS NOVIES MILL ABOLITA literally translates to “old receipts in the amount of nine times a hundred thousand sestertii cancelled." The HS is a standard abbreviation for sestertii and, depending upon its context, it can mean a single sestertius, a unit of one thousand sestertii, or a unit of one hundred thousand sestertii. Novies means "nine times" and applies to the sestertius as a unit of one thousand sestertii. Considering the monumental inscription, the HS in the legend of this sestertius should be interpreted with the thousand, or mille, understood. Thus, the figure should be increased to 900 million sestertii, equaling the sum named on Hadrian’s monumental inscription.