Galba was seventy-three years old, gout-ridden, and freshly hailed *imperator* by his own legions in Spain when this denarius came out of the Rome mint, and its reverse is doing the heaviest political lifting imaginable: SPQR OB C S, the Senate and People of Rome, *ob cives servatos*, for citizens saved, encircled by the *corona civica* of oak leaves. That formula was the oldest and most prestigious honor a Roman could receive, voted by the Senate to Augustus in 27 BC and stamped on coinage ever since as shorthand for legitimate, civic-minded rule. Galba is not subtle here.
By July 68 Nero was dead by his own hand, the dynasty of the Julio-Claudians had run out, and the new princeps from Tarraconensis needed to argue, fast and in silver, that his march on Rome had rescued the citizenry rather than overthrown a regime. The wreath says he is Augustus's heir in spirit if not in blood, the Senate's man, the savior of Romans from a Roman. Within six months the Praetorians would cut him down in the Forum and Otho would be wearing the purple, which is the trouble with minting your justification: the coin outlasts the argument.
- Mint
- Rome
- Struck
- circa July AD 68-January 69
- Authority
- Galba
- Reverse
- S P Q R, OB, and C S inscribed in three lines within an oak wreath