Triton XIV, Lot: 664. Estimate $500. Sold for $650. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Galba. AD 68-69. AR Denarius (18mm, 2.82 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck July AD 68-January AD 69. IMP SER GALBA CAESAR AVG, laureate head right / DIVA AVGVSTA, Livia, draped, standing left, holding patera in outstretched right hand and vertical scepter in left. RIC I 186; RSC 55; BMCRE 8-9; BN 83-4. Good VF, toned, hairline flan crack, minor porosity.

Suetonius 5.2: He showed marked respect to Livia Augusta, to whose favor he owed great influence during her lifetime and by whose last will he almost became a rich man; for he had the largest bequest among her legatees, one of fifty million sesterces. But because the sum was designated in figures and not written out in words, Tiberius, who was her heir, reduced the bequest to five hundred thousand, and Galba never received even that.

The line of the Julio-Claudian emperors had died out with Nero, but the new emperor Galba still wished to demonstrate continuity with the dynasty that had ruled for the last century, via his close friendship with Livia.