Sale: CNG 70, Lot: 865. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 September 2005.  Sold For $5500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CLAUDIUS. 41-54 AD. AV Aureus (7.64 g, 8h). Rome mint. Struck 49-50 AD. Laureate head right / DE BRITANN on architrave of triumphal arch surmounted by an equestrian statue flanked by trophies. RIC I 44; BMCRE 49; Calicó 351. VF. Rare. ($5000)

The Roman Senate voted to erect two triumphal arches to celebrate Claudius' conquest of Britain, one in Gaul and another in Rome. Fragments of the latter still survive. It announces that the arch was erected "by the Roman Senate and the People because he had received the surrender of eleven British kings defeated without loss and brought barbarian peoples beyond the Ocean for the first time under the rule of Rome" (H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 216; CIL VI, 920).