Sestertius - Hadrian PONT MAX TR POT COS III SC, Jupiter

Hadrian's third consulship, held in 119–120, came during his first full year of consolidated power following a contentious accession shadowed by the execution of four senior senators — an event Hadrian blamed on the Senate itself, though few believed him. The Jupiter reverse on sestertii of this period was not incidental: aligning the new emperor with the king of the gods was a deliberate response to that legitimacy problem, pressed in bronze for the widest possible circulation audience.

RIC II.3 #249 belongs to the revised Mattingly-Sydenham corpus corrected by the second edition, which significantly reorganized Hadrianic bronze attributions from earlier catalogues.