The Vestini were an Oscan-speaking Italic people of the central Apennines whose bronze coinage was produced during the decades when Rome was consolidating control over the peninsula following the Samnite Wars. This aes grave piece belongs to a small, tightly defined series issued by a tribe that would be among those swept into the Social War of 91–87 BC — a conflict in which the Italian allies, including Vestinian communities, took up arms precisely because Roman citizenship had been denied them for generations.
Aes grave of this weight class is rarely found intact; the casting process used across central Italy frequently produced flans with porosity or edge losses.
The Vestini were an Oscan-speaking Italic people of the central Apennines whose bronze coinage was produced during the decades when Rome was consolidating control over the peninsula following the Samnite Wars. This aes grave piece belongs to a small, tightly defined series issued by a tribe that would be among those swept into the Social War of 91–87 BC — a conflict in which the Italian allies, including Vestinian communities, took up arms precisely because Roman citizenship had been denied them for generations.
Aes grave of this weight class is rarely found intact; the casting process used across central Italy frequently produced flans with porosity or edge losses.