Hadrian — Denarius, PROVIDENTIA AVG, Rome

Struck at Rome in the later years of Hadrian's reign — the obverse legend

HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P carries the title Pater Patriae, which Hadrian

formally accepted only in AD 128, a decade after his accession. By then the

soldier-emperor of the frontier tours had settled into the role of

administrator, and the coinage turned to the quiet virtues of good government.

The reverse reads PROVIDENTIA AVG — "the Providence of the Emperor."

Providentia stands left, holding a sceptre and extending her hand over a globe

at her feet: imperial foresight presiding over the orb of the world, the visual

shorthand for an empire kept in order by the emperor's planning rather than by

conquest.

Attribution: RIC II 261

Mint: Rome

Weight: 2.84 g

Diameter: 16.53 mm

Catalogued in the NumisLens cabinet — NL-CQ8FJ-GFAAM