Denarius - Hadrian PIETATI AVG COS III P P, Pietas

Hadrian's prolonged tour of the eastern provinces between 128 and 132 AD generated an extraordinary volume of coinage emphasizing civic virtues, divine favor, and the emperor's personal piety — this issue among them. The PIETATI AVG legend was part of a deliberate program tying Hadrian's public image to religious observance at a moment when he was actively founding cities, restoring temples, and positioning himself as a benefactor of the Greek world.

RIC II.3 1118 belongs to the revised Spink corpus published in 2019, which substantially reorganized Hadrianic coinage and reassigned numerous specimens previously catalogued under the older RIC II Mattingly-Sydenham framework.