When this denarius was struck at Tarraco in the spring or summer of 68, Galba was technically a traitor. The Senate had not yet confirmed him, Nero was either still alive or freshly dead, and the elderly governor of Hispania Tarraconensis was raising legions in a province that had no business minting coinage at imperial weight. Yet here is Roma herself on the reverse, striding forward with spear and Victory on a globe, blessing a usurpation in progress as though it were already an accession. The globe tucked beneath Galba's neck on the obverse makes the same argument in miniature: the world is his, or about to be.
It is a remarkable piece of visual nerve from a man whose claim rested on little more than the loyalty of a single legion (VI Victrix) and the gamble that Vindex's revolt in Gaul would crack Nero's nerve before it cracked his own. The gamble paid off for about seven months. Tacitus's verdict, that Galba was capax imperii nisi imperasset, hangs over every coin like this one: equal to ruling, until he ruled.
- Mint
- Tarraco
- Struck
- circa April-late AD 68
- Authority
- Galba
- Reverse
- Roma advancing right, holding transverse spear and Victory on globe