Trajan ruled from AD 98 to 117 and his reign is conventionally taken as the high-water mark of the Roman Empire. The frontier reached its greatest extent: Dacia annexed, the Tigris briefly Roman, the Parthian capital Ctesiphon sacked. The treasury was full enough to finance the Forum of Trajan, the Markets, the column commemorating the Dacian campaigns, and a public-works programme that included roads, bridges, and aqueducts across the western provinces. Trajan was the first Roman emperor born outside Italy. Pliny the Younger's panegyric, addressed to him in AD 100, is the surviving high-water mark of imperial Roman rhetoric.
This collection is the surviving silver denarii of Trajan's reign in Aurora's current stock. Three pieces, all silver, all struck at the Rome mint, all catalogued against Roman Imperial Coinage, all reviewed by an independent numismatist, all backed by Aurora's written lifetime authenticity guarantee.
Why Trajan denarii matter to a Roman coin collector
Trajanic denarii sit at one of the most stable moments in the history of Roman silver. The denarius is still struck on a high-silver flan — fineness around 85 to 90 percent — at a target weight of about 3.3 to 3.4 grams. The portraiture is confidently late-classical, with deeply cut hair and full facial modelling. The mint at Rome is producing in volume; the consulship and tribunician dates on the reverse legends allow most issues to be placed within a single year. For a collector who wants to build a representative chronology of imperial portraiture, the Trajanic denarius is almost a prerequisite.
The reverses on Trajan's silver document the central themes of his reign: Dacicus after the Dacian wars, Parthicus after the Parthian campaign, S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI ("the senate and people of Rome to the best of leaders") — the dedication that gave Trajan the byname Optimus. Felicitas, Aequitas, Pax, Victoria, and the standards of conquered provinces all appear. The Trajanic mint is unusually rich in reverse types.
What to check on a Trajan denarius
Three markers separate a collectible Trajan denarius from a worn or problematic one. The portrait should show the characteristic Trajanic profile: the strong jaw, the close-cropped hair combed forward, the slightly hooked nose — recognisable across the issue. The obverse legend typically runs IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS V P P, with the consulship number (COS V, VI) and TR P number letting numismatists date an issue tightly. The reverse should match a published RIC type; spacing and letterform errors are common in modern forgeries copied from auction photographs.
Weight should fall in the 3.2 to 3.5 gram range. The flan should show the slight irregularity of hand-struck coinage on a rolled silver flan; cast forgeries show smooth seamed edges. Patina, where present, follows relief in three dimensions and is adherent under loupe examination. The full check is in our guide on how to authenticate an ancient Roman coin, and the abbreviated titulature is decoded in our guide to the letters on Roman coins.
Why buy a Trajan denarius from Aurora
Two reasons. First, the work done before the coin reaches the listing page: seven antiquarian markers, RIC reference confirmed, OCRE cross-reference, independent numismatist sign-off. Second, the written lifetime authenticity guarantee: if a Trajan denarius from Aurora is ever shown to be inauthentic, we refund it without time limit.
All three Trajan coins in this collection are catalogued, photographed obverse and reverse at 2048 px, and ship insured worldwide from Belgium. Provenance documentation accompanies every order. For the wider Roman silver range, see the Roman coin catalogue.