120, Lot: 227. Estimate $150. Sold for $155. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JULIA DOMNA, mother of Caracalla. Augusta, 193-217 AD. Æ As (26mm, 9.32 g). Struck 215 AD. Diademed and draped bust right / Four Vestals sacrificing in front of the Temple of Vesta. RIC IV 607 (Caracalla); BMCRE 232 (Caracalla); Cohen 234. VF, brown patina, rough surfaces with some pitting.

During the last five years of her life, following the fratricidal murder of her younger son Geta in 212 AD, Julia Domna virtually ran the government while Caracalla embarked on various military adventures. The emperor was much troubled by illness throughout his sole reign. On his way to the Parthian War in 214 he even visited the great shrine of Asklepios at Pergamum in the hopes of finding a cure, an occasion marked by the striking of a remarkable series of medallic bronzes at the Asian city. This rare and attractive As of Julia Domna, issued at Rome in 214, is on the same theme and records vows for the health of Caracalla undertaken by the Vestal virgins in a ceremony before the temple of Vesta. The four Vestals are accompanied by two children and the sanctuary itself appears as a small domed structure in the background. Over the centuries no fewer than seven temples of Vesta occupied the site in the Forum at the northern corner of the house of Vestals. Most were the victims of fire, the sixth temple having been destroyed late in the reign of Commodus (191 AD). Julia Domna herself built the seventh, and the partially reconstructed ruins of this building are still to be seen today.

From the Tony Hardy Collection.