Roman Imperial: Diva Faustina Senior (AD 138-140/1). AV aureus (19mm, 7.07 gm, 5h). NGC Choice MS 5/5 - 4/5....

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Diva Faustina Senior (AD 138-140/1). AV aureus (19mm, 7.07 gm, 5h). NGC Choice MS 5/5 - 4/5. Rome, AD 147-161. DIVA-FAVSTINA, draped bust of Diva Faustina I right, seen from front, hair elaborately waved in several loops around head under thin band, braided, drawn up and coiled on top with pearls / AVGV-STA, Ceres (or Aeternitas) standing facing, veiled head left, raising a short lighted torch in each hand. Calicó 1758. RIC III (Antoninus Pius) 357a.

Ex the Altstetten Collection (Roma Numismatics, Auction XXII, 7 October 2021), lot 800; kept in the vault of Crédit Suisse Geneva since 26 November 1969.

Annia Galeria Faustina was born into an aristocratic Roman senatorial family of Spanish descent. Her father and one brother achieved the rank of Consul; her other brother, Marcus Annius Verus, became Praetor and was father to the future Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Her maternal uncle was the Emperor Hadrian. In about AD 115, she married Titus Fulvius Antoninus, a respected Senator, and through her connections he became a close advisor to Hadrian. When Hadrian's intended successor, Aelius Caesar, died early in AD 138, the ailing emperor settled on the 52-year-old Antoninus as his replacement. Antoninus succeeded to the throne later that year and Faustina was acclaimed as Augusta, or Empress. Antoninus honored her extensively on the coinage and her vivacity, fashion sense and compassion for the poor made her very popular. Her distinctive hairstyle, with a plait wrapped in a tight coil atop her head, was copied by women throughout the Empire. While the staid Roman historians of later eras criticized her lack of "gravitas," Antoninus was devoted to her. The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. Although both male children died in infancy, the daughters lived well into adulthood, and one, Faustina the Younger, married Marcus Aurelius and became Augusta herself. Only two years into Antoninus' reign, Faustina died of an unknown illness. The grief-stricken Antoninus secured her deification and issued an immense coinage in her name, the largest for any Roman woman to that point. This magnificent aureus falls into the posthumous series.

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