Video of this coin available here
Roman Imperial. Vespasian (69-79 CE) AR Denarius (19mm, 3.07 g, 7h). “Judaea Capta” commemorative. Rome mint, circa 70 CE.
Obverse: IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG, laureate head right
Reverse: Judaea seated right in mourning, wearing long veil, resting chin on her left hand; trophy to left; IVDΛEA in exergue.
References: RIC (II.1) 2; RSC 226; Hendin 1479.
Provenance: Ex-Classical Numismatic Group (CNG [Lancaster, PA, USA]), e-Auction 481 (2 Dec 2020), Lot 547.
Notes: (Return to “Captives Collection”; or “Two Captives & Trophy” Blogpost.)
Elsewhere, CNG notes that:
The main Judaea Capta coinage was a series of imperial issues struck in gold, silver, and bronze, and provincial issues struck in silver and bronze, to celebrate the Roman defeat of Judaea, the capture of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Jewish Second Temple during the First Jewish War (66-73 CE). Generally, the reverse of this coinage shows a Jewish female seated in an attitude of mourning… most issues are inscribed IVDAEA CAPTA, IVDAEA DEVICTA, or simply IVDAEA…
June 2017, Triton XX, 84
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Perhaps the most famous “captives” issue, this coin is situated in the middle of the long sequence of captives-and-trophy reverse types. It was struck about 170 years after the first was issued, and nearly 300 years before the last.
As Mattingly noted in the BMCRE (Vol II), this is the first issue to present a lone, mourning captive and trophy – as opposed to a bound captive or pair of captives. The single, bound captive was first represented on Republican Quinarii; the pair of captives (usually one bound and one mourning, like Judaea here) was first depicted in Julius Caesar Denarii. Additional information in my essays on the “Two Captives & Trophy: Prisoners of War” type and Roman “Captives Coinage” more broadly.