Aureus - Domitian IMP VIIII COS XI CENSORIA POTESTAT P P, Germania

Domitian held the office of perpetual censor — censoria potestate — from 85 AD, an unprecedented accumulation of powers that allowed him to regulate public morality and purge the Senate at will. This aureus dates to that very year of assumption, placing it squarely in the period when contemporaries were beginning to understand that his rule would look nothing like his father Vespasian's. The Germanic victory referenced in the type followed his campaigns against the Chatti in 83, for which he claimed a triumph that critics, including Tacitus, openly mocked as fabricated.

RIC II.1 #325 is among several closely related aurei from this censorial group, distinguished by the iteration of his imperatorial acclamation.