Nerva, 96-98. Sestertius (Orichalcum, 34 mm, 28.39 g, 6 h), Rome, 97. IMP NERVA CAES AVG P M TR P II COS III P P Laureate head of Nerva to right. Rev. FISCI IVDAICI CAL[VMNIA SVB]LATA / S - C Palm tree with two date clusters. BMC 105. Bromberg -. CBN 97. Cohen 57. Hendin 6634b. RIC 82. Samel -. Shoshana -. Rare, of great historical interest, and with an excellent pedigree. Some areas of weakness and with minor roughness on the reverse, otherwise, about very fine.



Issued in the years 96 and 97 CE, this celebrated sestertius announces Nerva’s reform of the fiscus Iudaicus, the tax imposed by Vespasian after the Jewish War and symbolically linked here to Judaea by the palm tree. Under Domitian the tax had been enforced with particular severity: Suetonius famously records investigations of those accused of concealing their Jewish origin in order to avoid payment (Domitian 12.2).

The legend FISCI IVDAICI CALVMNIA SVBLATA ('The abuse associated with the Jewish tax has been removed.') is therefore generally understood not as the abolition of the tax itself, but as the ending of abuses, malicious accusations and intrusive investigations associated with its collection (M. Goodman: Nerva, the Fiscus Judaicus and Jewish Identity, in: JRS 79 (1989), pp. 40-44). Nerva’s type is thus a striking reversal of the Flavian imagery from which the tax had originated: the familiar palm of conquered Judaea now accompanies an imperial claim to correct the excesses of its administration.

Hendin has proposed instead that the legend refers retrospectively to Vespasian’s diversion of the former Temple tax to Rome, but this interpretation is difficult to reconcile with the historical context and remains a minority view among scholars (Guide to Biblical Coins, 6th ed., pp. 420-421).