Obverse:
Laureate head of Nero left. Text around NERO
CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER P M TR P IMP P P.
Reverse:
Nero on horse prancing right, accompanied
by second horseman. Text in exergue DECVRSIO,
S C.
History:
This coin refers to Nero’s institution
of cavalry manoeuvres for the praetorian soldiers.
The decursio was a military training exercise,
which acquired ceremonial pageantry. The decursio
Troiae was a specifically equestrian event
and may have been connected to the earlier
republican transvectio equitum, a ceremony
Augustus reinstituted. A similar decursio
appears on the base of the Column of Antoninus
Pius.
Date:
Lugdunum mint, circa 62 - 68 AD
Diameter:
3.6cm
