Aureus - Vespasian PAX AVGVST, Pax

Vespasian struck this aureus in 75 AD, three years into the systematic plunder and reorganization of Judaea following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 AD. The PAX AVGVST type was not subtle propaganda — it explicitly credited the Flavian dynasty with restoring Roman peace after the catastrophic civil war of 69 AD, the Year of the Four Emperors, which had seen Galba, Otho, and Vitellius all dead within months. Vespasian needed the legitimacy that Julio-Claudian emperors had inherited by birth; he manufactured it through monuments, coinage, and the Templum Pacis, completed in Rome in 75 AD.