Divus Vespasian - Victory judaea capta RARE (D2434)

Divus Vespasian (AD 69-79). AR denarius (19mm, 3.55 gm).  Rome, AD 80-81. DIVVS AVGVSTVS VESPASIANVS, laureate head of Vespasian right / Victory advancing left, placing shield on trophy, with X on shaft, Judaean captive seated left at base of trophy; EX-SC across fields. RIC II.1 (Titus) 364.

The death and deification of Vespasian in AD 79 was marked by an extensive commemorative coinage struck by his son and successor Titus. The Roman biographer Suetonius records a remarkable foreshadowing witticism which had been made by the late emperor while he was suffering from the severe dysentery that would take his life shortly thereafter: "Vae, puto deus fio" ("Woe's me, I think I'm becoming a god"). Chief among Vespasian's accomplishments celebrated in his sons' coinage and architecture was the conquest of Judaea, figuratively depicted on the reverse of this denarius. The most famous surviving work from the Flavian dynasty is the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, which depicts this historical event with striking detail and dynamism