Sestertius - Nero DECVRSIO S C

The DECVRSIO type commemorates the military exercises Nero staged near Rome — elaborate cavalry maneuvers performed largely for show, a calculated bid for martial credibility from an emperor who had none by experience. Ancient sources, Suetonius among them, are withering on the gap between the spectacle and any genuine military engagement on Nero's part. The reverse type was almost certainly issued by the mint on imperial instruction, making it unusual as a piece of deliberate self-mythologizing in bronze rather than the silver denominations typically reserved for imperial image-making.