As - Hadrian COS III S C

Hadrian's third consulship, held in 119 AD, was largely ceremonial by the time these asses were struck — he never held a fourth, making COS III the terminal consular marker for virtually his entire active reign. The S C formula on bronze coinage of this period reflects the Senate's formal authorization of aes coinage, a constitutional fiction that both sides maintained even as imperial control over the mint was total. RIC II.3 #820 falls within the reorganized sequence established by the revised second edition, which substantially reclassified Hadrianic bronzes previously misattributed across earlier die studies.