Sestertius - Nero DECVRSIO S C

The DECVRSIO type commemorates the military exercises — cavalry maneuvers specifically — that Nero performed publicly, partly as theatrical spectacle and partly as calculated propaganda to shore up credibility with the army. He had no genuine military record, and these staged displays were widely mocked by the senatorial class, though they apparently played well enough with the troops and urban crowds who watched them.

Struck across a broad date range before Nero's forced suicide in 68 AD, the issue spans the period of his increasingly erratic rule and the first stirrings of the Year of the Four Emperors.