When Servius Sulpicius Galba marched on Rome in the summer of 68, he did so not as emperor but as the legate of Hispania Tarraconensis in revolt, and the silver his Tarraco mint hammered out had to do the work of arguing his case in metal. Here is the argument: ROMA VICTRIX, with the goddess herself planting a foot on the globe, branch in one hand and spear in the other, while on the obverse the laureate head of Galba carries that same globe at the point of the neck. The message is that Rome's victory and Galba's elevation are one event, and that the world rests on both. This was a bold claim from a seventy-year-old governor whose only real asset was the loyalty of a single legion and the spectacular implosion of Nero in the capital.
The branch promises peace, the spear promises that the peace will be enforced, and the globe under Roma's heel insists that the empire is being restored rather than seized. Galba would reach Rome that autumn, be hailed by the Senate, and be cut down in the Forum by Othonian cavalry on 15 January 69. The coin outlived its program by a matter of weeks, and the year that followed would put four emperors through the same Tarraconensian dies of legitimacy, each insisting in turn that Roma was, indeed, victrix.
- Mint
- Tarraco
- Struck
- circa April-December AD 68
- Authority
- Galba
- Reverse
- Roma standing left with right foot on globe, holding branch and spear