RIC 0323 Vespasian

Æ As, 9.69g
Rome mint, 71 AD
Obv: IMP CAES VESPASIAN AVG COS III; Head of Vespasian, laureate, r.
Rev: S C in field; Temple of Capitoline Jupiter with six columns
RIC 323 (R2). BMC 614. BNC 588.
Ex Harlan J Berk BBS 225, 30 November 2023, lot 453. Ex Harlan J Berk, Summer 1986, lot 439.

In December 69 AD the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter was set ablaze and destroyed during factional warfare in the city of Rome between Vitellian and Flavian forces. Upon Vespasian's victorious arrival in October 70, one of his first acts was to lavishly rebuild the temple, supposedly carrying the first basket of rubble from the site himself. As it was the first major building project of the reign, the opening religious ceremonies were conducted with great fanfare. This extremely rare* as from 71 commemorates the rebuilding of the structure and is the earliest appearance of it on a Flavian coin. The reverse depicts an idealised rendition of the Vespasianic temple, as it was still a work in progress and would not be completed for several more years. The rebuilt temple would again succumb to fire in 80 under Titus. A double die match with the Oxford cast and the BM and Paris specimens.

*Rare enough that M. Tameanko in his book Monumental Coins erroneously refers to it as a sestertius and R. Darwell-Smith in Emperors and Architecture calls it a dupondius! N. T. Elkins gets it some-what right in his Monuments in Miniature, but unfortunately links this as variety of 71 to a photo of a heavily tooled sestertius from the BM with a fabricated reverse! No COS III sestertii with the temple of Jupiter exist.