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Denarius - Domitian IMP XI COS XII CENS P P P, Minerva

Issuer Roman Imperial Mint
Year 86
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Shape Round (irregular)
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Obverse description Laureate head of Domitian facing right, rendered in high relief with characteristic Flavian portraiture. The emperor's features are boldly rendered, with the laurel wreath clearly delineated around the head. The obverse legend runs clockwise around the periphery of the flan, partially visible due to the irregular shape of the struck flan. The portrait displays the confident, authoritative style typical of Domitianic coinage from the Roman mint at Rome.
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Obverse lettering IMP CAES DOMIT AVG GERM P M TR P V
(Translation: Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus Germanicus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunicia Potestate Quinta. Supreme commander (Imperator), Caesar, Domitian, emperor (Augustus), conqueror of the Germans, high priest, holder of tribunician power for the fifth time.)
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Additional information

Domitian's censorial title CENS P P P — Censor Perpetuus, adopted in 85 AD — marked his unprecedented claim to permanent moral authority over the Roman Senate, a provocation his contemporaries found deeply alarming. The IMP XI and COS XII dating pins this issue to 86 AD, a year into that self-appointment. Suetonius records that Domitian used the censorship aggressively, expelling senators he found politically inconvenient under the cover of moral reform.

RIC II.1 #425 falls within a tightly dated series made possible by Domitian's habit of updating his titulature with almost annual regularity — an inadvertent boon to modern die sequence scholars.

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