14 K YELLOW GOLD DIAMOND

The Roman Empire

Hadrian, 117 – 138

d=21 mm
Aureus 134-138, AV 7.27 g. HADRIANVS – AVG COS III P P Bare head l. Rev. HISPANIA Hispania reclining l., holding branch in r. hand and resting l. arm on rock behind; in front, rabbit. RIC 305. BMC 844. C 828. Calico 1273 (these dies).

Very rare. A spectacular portrait and a very interesting type. Good extremely fine

Ex NFA XXII, 1989, 57 and Stack’s December 1996, Price, 174 sales. From the A. Moretti collection.
Of all Rome’s provinces, Spain was perhaps the most Romanized. It had been won by the Romans through centuries of contests with Carthaginians and local Celt-Iberians and it proved to be one of the empire’s most useful possessions. Though Hadrian was born and raised in Rome, his father was a member of the Aelii, a Roman family which had prospered at Italica since the time of the Scipios, and his mother was from nearby Gades. The only evidence we have of Hadrian spending time at his family estates in Spain is in the year 90, just after he assumed his toga virilis. He spent less than a year there, during which he became involved in military training and no doubt continued to be tutored. Before the end of 90 Hadrian seems to have returned to Rome with the future emperor Trajan, who was preparing to assume the consulship on January 1, 91. When Hadrian’s father had died five years before, Trajan was appointed one of his wards, for he was a first cousin once removed who also hailed from two noble families of Italica, the Ulpii and the Traii. We have no good details about Hadrian’s brief stay in his ancestral homeland, but the fact that he did not visit Italica during his travels to Spain as emperor more than three decades later suggests that the young aristocrat considered his time in Italica uninspiring; indeed, while there we are told he indulged himself in hunting, perhaps to pass the boredom of provincial life.

NAC38, 60

1 hour chart

1372 and price appears as if it can bounce off the purple channel for third time.

Price MUST move east of the purple line (some day) and we are within a cycle to accommodate that event.

1372 breaks and 1327 is instantly a target over less than 20 day time period.