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Hadrian. AD 117-138. Æ Sestertius (34mm, 25.59 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 119-circa mid 120. Laureate bust with bare chest right, slight drapery / Lictor standing left, holding brand and setting fire to a heap of bonds on ground to left, and holding fasces with ax upright; to left, three citizens standing right, raising right hands in celebration. RIC II.3 264; Banti 624. Dark green-brown patina, smoothing. VF.
From the Wild Rose Collection, purchased from Notaras Coins & Antiquities (David Morgan), November 2015.
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. Taken in context with the monument’s inscription, the HS in the legend of this sestertius should be read with a thousand, or mille, understood. Thus, the figure should be increased to 900 million sestertii, equaling the sum named on Hadrian’s monument.
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