Denarius - Hadrian P M TR P COS II IVSTITIA, Justitia

Struck in 117 AD, the year Hadrian acceded to the throne following Trajan's death in Cilicia — under circumstances suspicious enough that Trajan's wife Plotina was widely accused of fabricating or delaying announcement of the succession to ensure Hadrian's position. The early tribunician and consular dating places this issue within Hadrian's first months of rule, before he had consolidated political authority in Rome itself.

The invocation of Justitia was pointed. Hadrian had four senior senators executed almost immediately after his accession, an act he attributed to the Praetorian prefect Attianus. Distancing himself from that bloodshed through coinage imagery was a calculated political move.