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Titus / Pontif Maxim Mule
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Titus. As Caesar, AD 69-79. AR Denarius, Rome mint. Struck under Vespasian, AD 73.
O: Laureate head right; T CAES IMP VESP CENS
R: Vespasian seated right on curule chair, feet on footstool, holding scepter and olive branch.
- RIC II 554 (R) (Vespasian); BMC 113; RSC 158. Struck from the same obverse die as the aureus illustrated for Calicó 746.
An interesting mule. When this coin was struck, Titus was only Pontifex not Pontifex Maximus. The same reverse type was also struck for Titus with his correct titles, PONTIF TRI POT.
The reverse type clearly copies the PONTIF MAXIM Livia seated type of Tiberius. Vespasian may have copied this and other earlier aureus and denarius reverse types as restorations, since he was melting down and recoining the originals to take advantage of Nero's debasement of 64 AD. According to CClay, "Use of the SAME dies for both aurei and denarii was the rule up until Titus and continued in some issues until about Hadrian. Thereafter the style and size of the two denominations diverged, though gold and silver QUINARII often continued to be struck from the same dies."
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