87, Lot: 72. Estimate $150. Sold for $312. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN. 117-138 AD. Æ Sestertius (33mm, 23.95 gm). Struck circa 120-122 AD. Laureate bust right, seen from front, slight drapery on left shoulder / Lictor standing left, alighting pile of records with torch and holding fasces. RIC II 590b; Cohen 1210. Near Fine, brown patina. Rare.

From the Garth R. Drewry Collection.

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 lector 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.