Titus. AD 79-81. Æ Sestertius (34mm, 24.17 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 80-81. Fine.

CNG Feature Auction 124
Lot: 635. Estimated: $ 7 500

Roman Imperial, Bronze, Coin-in-Hand Video

Sold For $ 8 750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Go to Live

Titus. AD 79-81. Æ Sestertius (34mm, 24.17 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 80-81. View of the Flavian Amphitheater (The Colosseum), seen from aerial perspective; to left, porticus of the Baths of Titus; to right, Meta Sudans; interior dotted with spectators / IMP T CAES VESP AVG P M TR P P P COS VIII, S C across field, Divus Titus seated left on curule chair, holding branch; arms around. RIC II.1 184; Elkins Type B, – (A3/P – unlisted rev. die). Brown surfaces, pitting. Fine. Very rare and of great historical interest.

From the Libertas Collection. Ex Dr. John A. Sawhill Collection/James Madison University Foundation (Stack’s, 15 March 1979), lot 800.

This sestertius offers a bird's eye view of the most famous landmark of ancient Rome. Construction on the Colosseum began in AD 71 during the reign of Vespasian, and dedication ceremonies were held in 75 after the completion of the first three stories. In 80, the remaining two stories were completed, and new dedication ceremonies were conducted in June, celebrated on this sestertius of Titus. Elkins, in his article on these pieces, argues that they were commemorative pieces distributed by Imperial munificence at games held in the Colosseum.

The final winners of all CNG Feature Auction 124 lots will be determined during the live online sale that will be held on 19-20 September 2023. This lot is in Session Three, which will begin 20 September at 9 AM ET.

Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.

We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.