Denarius - Nerva IMP II COS IIII P P, Libertas

Nerva's fourth consulship in 98 AD was also his last — he died in January of that year after a reign of just sixteen months, having spent much of it under effective house arrest following a mutiny by the Praetorian Guard in 97 AD that forced him to adopt Trajan as heir. The Libertas type belongs to a programmatic series asserting restored freedoms after Domitian's reign, a message Nerva pressed hard in his coinage from the very beginning.

RIC II 43 is among the commoner Nerva denarii, but the reign is short enough that absolute numbers remain modest.