Titus, as Caesar, 69-79. Aureus (Gold, 19 mm, 7.27 g, 6 h), Rome, struck under Vespasian, 72-73. T CAES IMP VESP PON TR POT Laureate head of Titus to right. Rev. Titus, laureate and togate, standing in slow quadriga right, holding olive branch his right hand and scepter in his raised left; on front of car, large wreath. BMC 520 corr. ('Antioch'). Bromberg -. Calicó 722. CBN 73. Cohen 393. Hendin 6497. RIC 370. Samel -. Shoshana I 20532. Very rare, beautifully toned, and very likely the finest known example, with a delightful portrait of Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem. Very minor deposits and with a few faint scratches, otherwise, extremely fine.



For Titus, the image of the triumphal quadriga had a particularly personal resonance. As commander of the final campaign in Judaea, he had directed the siege and capture of Jerusalem in 70 CE and returned to Rome the following year to celebrate the victory jointly with his father. On this aureus of 72-73 CE, that achievement is expressed not through images of captives or the defeated province, but through Titus himself in the traditional role of the Roman triumphator.

The same quadriga type was also issued for Vespasian (see lot 376 above), giving the Judaean victory a distinctly dynastic character. Vespasian could claim the success as emperor under whose auspices the war had been fought, while Titus embodied the military achievement of the campaign itself as the commander who had brought the siege of Jerusalem to its conclusion. The use of the same triumphal imagery for both men thus presented the conquest as a shared achievement of the Flavian house.

Titus’ association with the Judaean triumph remained central to his public image long after these coins were struck. The Arch of Titus, erected after his death, famously shows him riding in a quadriga and being crowned by Victory, while the facing relief depicts the spoils of the Jerusalem Temple carried in procession. The aureus and the later monument are not directly dependent on one another, since the triumphal quadriga belonged to a much older Roman tradition, but both preserve the same fundamental image of Titus as the victor over Judaea. On the present coin, that identity had already been given one of its clearest and most prestigious expressions in gold.