Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Aureus - Vitellius, Aulus Vitellius Germanicus and Vitellia LIBERI IMP GERMAN
| Issuer | Roman Empire (27 BC - 395 AD) |
|---|---|
| Year | 69 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Denarius, Reform of Augustus (27 BC – AD 215) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Two confronted bare busts of Vitellius's children — his son Aulus Germanicus (left, facing right) and his daughter Vitellia (right, facing left) — rendered in youthful, unidealized portraiture. The two busts face one another across the central field, their truncations nearly touching at the base. The encircling legend LIBERI IMP GERMAN, in Latin capitals, identifies them as the children of the Imperator Germanicus. A beaded border runs along the rim. This dynastic reverse type, glorifying the emperor's offspring, is characteristic of Vitellius's brief propaganda program during his short reign in AD 69. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Vitellius reigned for just eight months in 69 AD, the Year of the Four Emperors, before being dragged through Rome and executed by Vespasian's forces. This aureus honoring his children — issued to project dynastic legitimacy he never lived to establish — was struck at a moment when the empire was functionally at war with itself, with Othonian and then Flavian armies advancing from the Danube.
RIC I 78 is among the scarcer emissions of his brief reign, a direct consequence of how little time the Vitellian mint had to operate before the regime collapsed.