Rare IVDAEA DEVICTA Denarius
Vespasian. AD 69-79. AR Denarius (17.5mm, 3.24 g, 6h). “Judaea Capta” commemorative. Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. Struck AD 71. IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG TR P, laureate head right / IVDAEA DEVICTA, Judaea standing left, head slightly bowed, hands bound in front of her; palm tree to right. RIC II.1 1120; Lyon 12; Hendin 6518; RSC 243; BMCRE 388; BN 297. Light iridescent toning, minor scratches. Near VF. Very rare, this type was only struck at Lugdunum.
Ex Harry N. Sneh Collection (Gemini IX, 9 January 2012), lot 413.
Once again for a long-beleaguered people, the dream of a Judaea free from conquerors was deferred. When Vespasian was acclaimed Emperor by the eastern legions on 1 July AD 69, he left his son Titus in command of ongoing operations to repress the Jewish rebellion. Like his father, Titus was a skilled general and by April AD 70 had forced the rebels and many civilians to seek safety behind the walls of Jerusalem. These he placed under a close siege that dragged on for four months and brought the defenders to extremities of starvation. At last, in August, the forces under Titus stormed the city and set it and the Temple ablaze. Although mopping up operations against surviving rebel elements continued in Judaea until AD 73, for the Roman Empire the siege of Jerusalem had been the culmination of five straight years of warfare, which had devastated the economy and threatened the very foundations of the empire. Titus traveled to Rome in AD 71, the famed golden menorah and showbread table of Jerusalem’s Temple in tow, to celebrate a formal triumph alongside his father and his brother Domitian. Vespasian had destroyed his rivals in AD 69 and upon becoming sole Emperor had named Titus as Caesar. The Roman victory over the Jewish rebels subsequently became a keystone of the numismatic propaganda deployed on the Judaea Capta coins in gold, silver, and bronze struck by both Vespasian and Titus.
In one of the most undignifying reinterpretations of a passage from Isaiah, the Romans intended to display the spiritual breaking of the Jewish people: “Thy men shall fall by the sword. And thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and utterly bereft she shall sit upon the ground.” On perhaps the most famous of the reverse types in the Judea Capta series, Judaea, personified as a young woman, is depicted in captivity — chained by a palm tree and bereft on the ground, while the triumphant Vespasian is shown in a general’s armor.
In another reverse type, a most unorthodox representation of Pax, the goddess of peace, holds a flaming torch with which she sets fire to a heap of arms, the spoils of Rome’s defeated enemies. This symbolic act was carried out in fulfillment of a vow undertaken to Rome’s principal deities of war, Mars and Minerva. A statue of the latter appears atop a column accompanying the scene of celebration. The hope was that with the cessation of hostilities, the Roman people could now enjoy a period of tranquility under Flavian rule.
A third reverse belongs to this Flavian propaganda in its depiction of Titus on horseback, riding down a fallen Jewish rebel. The mounted Roman ruler slaying his fallen enemies was a standard image used to advertise the ruler as a great warrior that continued in use on Roman imperial coins down to the fourth century. The message of Vespasian’s type was so clear that no associated inscription is provided except for the abbreviated Senatus Consultum authorizing the issue. The reverse type likely represents a statue erected in Rome to honor Titus for his triumph.
As was the case with the Arch of Titus, a monument constructed in honor of the Emperor’s conquest upon his death, these coins were intended to display the thorough and ruthless spiritual breaking of the Jewish people. And yet, nearly two thousand years later, perhaps the Judaea Capta coins also mirror the arch in another way, as David Hendin poignantly notes: “...that arch stands today not as a monument to its Roman builders, whose civilization has long since disappeared, but as a monument to the Jewish people who outlived their conquerors by many generations.”
