Denarius VESTA P R QVIRITIVM, Jupiter and Vesta

Struck under Galba in the civil war year of 69 AD — the Year of the Four Emperors — this denarius belongs to one of the most chaotic minting episodes in Roman imperial history. Galba's legions had declared him emperor in June 68, while Nero still lived; by January 69, Galba himself was dead in the Forum, his head paraded on a pike. The invocation of Vesta and Jupiter on issues of this period reflects a deliberate bid for religious legitimacy from an emperor who had none of the dynastic claim that the Julio-Claudians had spent a century cultivating.