Search


CNG Bidding Platform

Information

Products and Services



Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
119, Lot: 243. Estimate $300.
Sold for $320. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN. 117-138 AD. Æ Sestertius (32mm, 25.79 g). Struck circa 120-122 AD. Laureate bust right, slight drapery on far shoulder / RELIQVA VETERA HS NOVIES MILL ABOLITA, lictor standing right, holding fasces and lighting pile of records with torch; three citizens standing left, raising right hands in approbation. RIC II 592a; Cohen 1212. Near VF, rough brown patina. An historically important type.

From the Tony Hardy Collection.

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 (stipulationes) symbolizing the debts being cancelled. The burning occurred in Trajanís Forum, where Hadrian erected a monument inscribed ìthe 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."

The legend RELIQVA VETERA HS NOVIES MILL ABOLITA literally translates to ìold receipts in the amount of nine times a hundred thousand sestertii cancelled." The HS is a standard abbreviation for sestertii and, depending upon its context, it can mean a single sestertius, a unit of one thousand sestertii, or a unit of one hundred thousand sestertii. Novies means "nine times" and applies to the sestertius as a unit of one thousand sestertii. Considering the monumental inscription, the HS in the legend of this sestertius should be interpreted with the thousand, or mille, understood. Thus, the figure should be increased to 900 million sestertii, equaling the sum named on Hadrianís monumental inscription.