HONOS ET
VIRTVS is actually a
type of Galba's wonderful "
officina G" at the end of
his reign.
Kraay,
Aes Coinage of
Galba, p. 52, was the first to notice that two of Galba's HONOS ET
VIRTVS rev. dies, including your P 195 with the mistake TE for ET, then continued to be used for
Vitellius. An example of your TE die used for
Vitellius:
Kraay pl.
XXXV, A =
Paris pl. XXIV, 90.
In the substantial body of material assembled by
Kraay, however, there were no coins that showed a continued use of a Galban HONOS ET
VIRTVS die under
Vespasian, two years later. The discovery of such a coin has to be credited to the new
RIC (
Carradice and Buttrey), unless that die link was already observed in the Thesaurus
catalogue of 2006.
Kraay's summary of
his findings concerning this
type:
"
Honos et Virtus:
Galba has four
sestertius dies of this
type (P 182, 184, 185, 195), of which two (P 185, 195: PLATE
XXXV) were
still being used by Vitellius'
moneyers.
Vespasian used this
type in A.D. 71 only; altogether he
had five dies of this
type, none of which
had been previously used by
Galba or
Vitellius."