As - Hadrian COS III S C, Janus

The COS III dating places this as firmly within Hadrian's third consulship, a period when the emperor was largely absent from Rome on his celebrated tour of the eastern provinces. The Janus type on an as was a deliberate archaism — Janus was among the oldest of Roman divinities and his appearance on bronze coinage at this moment likely reflects the mint's interest in projecting continuity and ancestral Roman piety during a reign defined by Hellenophile tastes that made many senators deeply uneasy.

RIC II.3 #748 is part of the revised Spink corpus that substantially reorganized Hadrianic bronze, reassigning numerous pieces previously misattributed in the older RIC II.