Unique First Coin of Titus – A New Judaea Capta Issue

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 903. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $2750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Titus. As Caesar, AD 69-79. Æ Sestertius (24.78 g, 6h). Judaea Capta type. Rome mint. Struck under Vespasian, AD 71. T CAES VESPASIAN IMP PON TR POT COS, laureate head right / VICT-ORIA AVGVSTI, S C across field, Victory standing right, left foot propped on helmet, inscribing with right hand a shield set on her left knee and against palm tree to right. RIC 2.1 (forthcoming), 355 (this coin); cf. F. Schmidt-Dick, Die Römischen Münzen des Medagliere im Castelvecchio zu Verona (Vienna, 1995), 4903 (same rev. die, but obv. with COS II legend). VF, brown surfaces, light pitting, smoothed, some details slightly enhanced. Unique.

Prior to the discovery of the present coin, there had been no known coins of Titus that were struck during his first consulship, which he served in AD 71 following his arrival in Rome from Judaea. The surprising absence of any such coin, given the momentous events of the previous year, was first noted by the renowned eighteenth century numismatist J.-H. Echkel (Doctrina II:6, p. 352 [Vienna, 1828]). It is evident from the numismatic evidence of the Flavian dynasty that the consulships of the emperors were meticulously recorded on the coinage. The presence of COS without an ordinal number on this coin, therefore, indicates that this sestertius was definitely struck during Titus' first consulship. As such this is the first imperial issue of Titus, and bears his earliest portrait on a Roman coin. It is also among the earliest Judaea Capta coins.