NERO
AD 54-68
AR Denarius. 3.01g, 17mm
MINTED: Rome mint, AD 64-65
REF: RIC I 53; RSC 119
OBVERSE: NERO CAESAR AVGVSTVS, laureate head right.
REVERSE: IVPPITER CVSTOS, Jupiter seated left on throne, holding thunderbolt and scepter.

Notes:
Nicely toned and well-centered with a youthful, slimmer portrait of Nero.  Some old nicks and scratches.  A historic type, and pedigreed to an important collection (see below).
Nero had this issue struck claiming the protection of Jupiter the Preserver (IVPPITER CVSTOS) when he survived Gaius Calpurnius Piso's conspiracy to have him assassinated in AD 65. Over 40 people were implicated in the conspiracy, and some prominent members and former close associates of Nero such as the philosopher Seneca, the poet Lucan and satirist Petronius were forced to commit suicide.
 
Provenance:
Ex Archer M. Huntington Collection, ANS 1001.1.25293
Archer M. Huntington III (1870-1955) was one of the great  American philanthropists of the early decades of the 20th century.  From his mother, he acquired a deep appreciation for the arts, and when he was 30 years old, he inherited a portion of the vast wealth of his stepfather, the railroad tycoon Collis Huntington, which allowed him to become one of the most important benefactors to many cultural institutes and societies in America.  It was almost a statement of fact when he once casually remarked, "Wherever I put my foot down, a museum springs up."  As a scholar and a collector, Huntington's passion was the history and art of Spain, and he was a prodigious collector of all things Hispanic.  His collection of Spanish and Spain-related coinage, from pre-Roman bronzes and Roman silver and gold, to medieval and modern issues, numbered almost 38,000 pieces, and was not only the largest and most complete, but also the most important ever assembled outside Spain.
 
Historical Notes:
One of Rome's most well-known and infamous emperors, Nero inherited the throne at the age of seventeen when his stepfather, Claudius, was poisoned by his wife and Nero's mother, Agrippina.  Nero is often characterized as a debauched, gluttonous tyrant, responsible for the murders of his mother, stepbrother, and wife, as well as the executions of numerous senators and political rivals.  He began persecuting Christians, having them burned alive in his garden, and he is also said to have sang while the city of Rome was consumed in a great fire that Nero himself had started.  After thirteen years of rule, Nero faced a major rebellion of the governors Gaul and Spain in AD 68.  In Rome, he was abandoned by the Praetorian Guard, and confronted by rumours that a hostile Senate had declared him an enemy of the state and ordered his execution, he committed suicide.