DOMITIAN. As Caesar, 69-81 AD. AV Aureus (19mm, 7.38 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck 77-78 AD. DOMITIANVS CAESAR AVG F, laureate head right / COS V in exergue, captive kneeling right, offering military standard in raised right hand and extending left with open palm. RIC II 240 (Vespasian); BMCRE 231-233 (Vespasian); BN 205-206 (Vespasian); Calicó 819b. Near EF, traces of underlying luster. Bold, attractive portrait.
The reverse of this aureus immediately calls to mind a similar type found on denarii of Augustus, commemorating the recovery of the Parthian standards (cf. RSC 4). According to both Suetonius (Dom. 2) and Cassius Dio (65.15.3), the Parthian king Vologases appealed to Rome for assistance against the Alans in 75 AD. Domitian, who was relegated by both his father and brother to the background of political and military affairs, saw this as an opportunity to acquire much-needed military experience and prestige. Vespasian, however, declined to assist the Parthians, and instead fortified Rome's frontiers in the area. As a result, Parthia, now rebuffed, planned to attack the Roman province of Syria. The last-minute maneuvering of Syria's governor, M. Ulipius Traianus, father of the future emperor Trajan, achieved a diplomatic solution to the crisis and averted all-out war. Such a diplomatic resolution with Rome's mortal enemy, which included the dispatch of a so-called "Parthian laurel" to Rome (Pliny, Pan. 14), recalled Augustus' similar accomplishments in the recovery of the military standards almost a century earlier. As Vespasian was already invoking the image of Augustus by reintroducing his predecessor's reverse types on his own coinage, it was natural for him to use this particular type for his own diplomatic coup regarding Parthia. Though unable to fulfil his own personal grand ambitions, Domitian could nevertheless bask in the reflected glory of his father's success by having this coin bear his portrait.
