Aureus - Hadrian, Trajan, and Plotina DIVIS PARENTIBVS

Struck to commemorate the deified Trajan and Plotina, this aureus belongs to a small group of posthumous issues Hadrian produced honoring his adoptive parents — a politically motivated act of filial piety that also helped legitimize his own succession, which had been disputed from the moment of Trajan's death in 117. The circumstances of that adoption were murky enough that Hadrian's enemies openly questioned whether Trajan had ever formally named him heir at all, or whether the dying emperor's wife had orchestrated the whole thing.

The DIVIS PARENTIBVS legend places both Trajan and Plotina in the divine sphere simultaneously — an unusual pairing on a single issue.