Ancient Rome - AD 244-49 Otacilia Severa AR Double-Denarius NGC Choice AU★ Ex. Robbins Collection

CHoice AU* with a perfect surface (5/5) and perfect strike (5/5) seems to be what the ancinet market craves nowadays. This coin is the finest of only a few we have seen sold. The reverse design is rarely encountered. The last appearance of a substantially similar coin was in the Leu Numismatik Auction 12 of May 2022. That coin, lot 1396, realized approximately $700.

We know little of Marcia Otacilia Severa. Her father may have been one Otacilius Severus, a governor of Pannonia. She married Marcus Julius Verus Philippus about a decade before he became emperor and gave birth to their only son, Philip Junior around AD 237. With Philip's accession to the purple in AD 244, Otacilia was given the title Augusta. She was later hailed as Mater Castrorum ("Mother of the Camps") and Mater Senatus et Patriae ("Mother of the Senate and the Country"). It is likely that she was executed by the praetorian guards after Philip's defeat near Verona by Trajan Decius.