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

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.