Matidia the Elder, niece of Trajan and mother-in-law of Hadrian, died in 119 AD. Hadrian's public grief was conspicuous — he delivered her funeral oration personally and pushed through her deification with unusual speed, minting a substantial consecratio series in her honor. The gesture was almost certainly political: elevating Trajan's family line bolstered Hadrian's own contested succession, which many in Rome viewed with suspicion following Trajan's ambiguous deathbed arrangements.
RIC II 752 belongs to that posthumous issue, struck at Rome in the year of her death.
Matidia the Elder, niece of Trajan and mother-in-law of Hadrian, died in 119 AD. Hadrian's public grief was conspicuous — he delivered her funeral oration personally and pushed through her deification with unusual speed, minting a substantial consecratio series in her honor. The gesture was almost certainly political: elevating Trajan's family line bolstered Hadrian's own contested succession, which many in Rome viewed with suspicion following Trajan's ambiguous deathbed arrangements.
RIC II 752 belongs to that posthumous issue, struck at Rome in the year of her death.