Denarius - Hadrian LIBERALITAS AVG COS III, Liberalitas

This issue commemorates one of Hadrian's public congiaria — cash distributions made directly to Roman citizens, a practice as much political theater as welfare. By his third consulship Hadrian had already distributed largesse at least twice, and the series of coins bearing Liberalitas served both to publicize these gifts and to circulate the ideology of imperial generosity long after the distributions themselves had ended. Hadrian is known to have canceled substantial debts owed to the treasury in 118 AD, an act so dramatic that the records were publicly burned in the Forum of Trajan.