Coin

Roman Empire, Italy. Divus Vespasian, struck under Titus,Rome,, c. 80-81 AD, Orichalcum Sestertius, 22.35g (33.1mm, 5h).DIVO AVG VESPAS, Deified and radiate Vespasian, holding sceptre and Victory, seated r. in cat drawn by four elephants with riders; in exergue, S P Q R. / IMP T CAES DIVI VESP F AVG P M TR P P P COS VIII, Around large S C.Pedigree: Ex Brüder Egger XLIII, 14 April 1913, lot 573References: RIC II.1, 258. Cohen 206. BMC 223.Grade: Some professional smoothing. Rough surfaces with overall light porosity and/or pitting. Wonderful obverse imagery with newly discovered pedigree dating over 100 years. Good VFre1471 The obverse here is one of the great consecration types of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian series- - a posthumous tribute struck at the Rome Mint under Titus in AD 80–81 to honor his recently deified father, who had died in June AD 79. The scene itself is a pompa circensis, a sacred procession. Divus Vespasian is shown seated on a tensa, a ceremonial cart of the kind used to parade cult images of the gods at the Circus Maximus, holding a long scepter and a small statue of Victory. The cart is ornamented with captured arms in a nod to Vespasian's Judean campaigns and the spoils of Jerusalem. Drawing the tensa are four elephants, each guided by a mahout. The elephant quadriga itself is a deliberate iconographic callback to Tiberius's famous DIVO AVGVSTO sestertii of AD 36–37.