Cistophorus - Domitian and Augustus ROM ET AVG, Roma

Cistophori were a distinctly eastern coinage, struck at mints in the former Attalid kingdom — Ephesus most likely in this case — and accepted at a fixed rate of three denarii rather than circulating interchangeably with the mainstream Roman silver. Domitian's cistophoric series is notable for pairing the reigning emperor with deified Augustus, a calculated association that his Flavian predecessors had also exploited but that carried particular weight for Domitian, whose relationship with the Senate was, by 95 AD, openly adversarial.

RIC II.1 854 is one of the rarer numbers in Domitian's cistophoric run.