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Message:: [QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 1731060, member: 19463"]Above is nothing but fact.  Tiberius is the worst of the 12 Caesars and the 12 as a whole are more beneficiaries of historical hysteria than anyone.  Many later emperors have many more interesting types.  I do agree that the best of the 12 (Galba and Vespasian) have some great sestertii portraits but each ruler is lucky to have a handful of types better than some standing figure.  Had Suetonius not written his book, I'd expect prices on the twelve would be half or less of current levels.  There is a text of an early Christian writer that could have blown this whole deal.  In the Gospel of Thomas (a book that did not make the cut when the early fathers selected what was included in the Bible) we read: (100) They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, "Caesar's men demand taxes from us." He said to them, "Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine." If the mainstream Gospels had told the story using an aureus rather than a denarius, I wonder what would be the effect on the price of all these boring denarii.[/QUOTE]