Ancient Coin of the Day: An aureus of Nero from AD 64-65, with a Reverse showing the closed doors of the Temple of Janus. #ACOTD #Nero

Image: RIC Nero 50 (British Museum R.6525)

The Temple of Janus was a key structure in Rome, constructed by Numa Pompilius - accounted King of Rome, 715-672 BC - to "serve as a kind of barometer of war" (Livy 1.19.2). Augustus had famously celebrated the closing of the doors three times during his reign...

...in 29 BC (at the ending of the civil wars), 25 BC (after the wars in Spain), and at a third date which may be 8-7 BC. Subsequent emperors continued this tradition, as Nero does on this coin.

The Reverse of this coin features the emphatic Legend IANVM CLVSIT PACE P R TERRA MARIQ PARTA - 'He closed [the gates of] Janus, after obtaining peace for the Roman People by land and sea', a claim Nero made following the campaigns Corbulo against the Parthians and Armenians.

Nero also established a triumphal arch on the Capitol between AD 58-62 for Corbulo's Parthian victories, celebrating it on coinage as well, as on this bronze sestertius of AD 62-68.

Image: RIC Nero 149

There were also bronze issues with the commemoration of the closing of the doors of Janus, such as this sestertius of AD 62-68, here showing rather more of the building than the doors. That the message was repeated across several years, and across multiple...

Image: RIC Nero 270

...coin denominations and designs, is indicative of just how important a message this was, even though the claims of peace throughout the empire were perhaps less than convincing in some instances.

For more on Janus, see:

Taylor, Rabun. “Watching the Skies: Janus, Auspication, and the Shrine in the Roman Forum.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, vol. 45, 2000, pp. 1–40.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4238764 

#ACOTD #Nero #Janus