Nerva. AD 96-98. Æ Sestertius (32mm, 26.99 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 97. Good VF.

CNG Feature Auction 132
Lot: 769. Estimated: $ 1 000

Roman Imperial, Bronze, Coin-in-Hand Video

Sold For $ 1 500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Go to Live

Nerva. AD 96-98. Æ Sestertius (32mm, 26.99 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 97. Laureate head right / Fortuna, draped, standing left, holding rudder and cornucopia. RIC II 83; Banti 21. Green-brown patina, light smoothing in fields, minor cleaning marks along edge. Good VF.

From the Gasvoda Collection. Ex Wayne Scheible Collection (Triton XXVII, 9 January 2024), lot 741; Berk BBS 125 (27 February 2002), lot 719.

In order to counteract the public discord engendered by Domitian’s assassination and secure his own position on the throne, Nerva embarked on implementing a number of reforms and methods of alleviating the distress of the citizens of Rome. One of these was the special distribution of grain (frumento constituto) to the populace (plebes urbanae) in addition to that which they were already receiving from the annona, a long-standing public institution that had been subsidizing handouts since the time of Augustus. By Nerva’s day, this regular distribution had become so important that any temporary cessation of the supply could result in urban riots. In order to show his good intentions toward the capital and its people and demonstrate that the grain would continue to flow in an unceasing supply, Nerva made this special distribution. The commemoration of the event on this coin further reminded everyone of the “good emperor” who now ruled.

The final winners of all CNG Feature Auction 132 lots will be determined at the live online sale that will be held on 18-19 May 2026.

CNG Feature Auction 132 – Session Three – Lot 588-888 will be held Tuesday morning, 19 May 2026 beginning at 9:00 AM ET.

Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.

We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.