Denarius - Hadrian LIBERALITAS AVG COS III P P, Liberalitas

This issue commemorates one of Hadrian's public congiaria — cash distributions made directly to the Roman citizenry, distinct from the donatives paid to soldiers. By the time Hadrian held his third consulship, he had already made liberalitas a deliberate instrument of policy, using distributions to bind the urban populace to an emperor who spent much of his reign abroad touring the provinces rather than governing from Rome. The coin essentially announces generosity in absentia.

RIC II.3 1103 belongs to the extensive post-reform Hadrianic coinage reorganized in the 2007 revision of RIC II.