Sestertius - Vitellius VICTORIA AVG S C, Victory

Vitellius held power for less than eight months in 69 AD — the Year of the Four Emperors — before being dragged through Rome and executed by supporters of Vespasian. His bronze coinage was struck at Rome during this window, and the VICTORIA legend was almost certainly propagandistic cover for a reign that had just won a civil war at Bedriacum rather than any foreign enemy. RIC I 142 is among the more obtainable of his sestertii, though the type as a whole is scarce relative to the major Julio-Claudian issues simply because the mint had fewer than thirty weeks to produce it.