The goddess Maia on denarii of Domitian

This is one of the rarest types of Domitian's coinage, struck somewhere between September 95 and September 96, as shown by the dating of the tribunician power. The issue of TR P XV was known to Cohen only from a piece in trade (Rollin), and to Mattingly in BMCRE only from Cohen. Since the publication of BMCRE vol. 2, an example has been acquired by the British Museum and a few others have appeared on the market. To this day there is no example of it in the extensive collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. As to TR P XVI, no-one knew that the type had been struck up to that date until an example surfaced in the Mazzini collection, the only one ever to have been seen. The type was obviously struck in very small quantities, given the few examples that survive. The issues of TR P XV and TR P XVI were struck from the same reverse die, which suggests that the first was probably produced late in the tribunician year, say late August to mid-September of 96. The TR P XVI issue was probably struck for less than a week, Domitian's dies imperii falling on 14 September and his assassination on the 18th. It is reasonable to suppose, too, that the rarity of the latest coinage reflects the murder: any stocks of Domitian's coin still held at the mint or in the Aerarium would have been reduced to raw metal and re-used for Nerva

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