Two For The Price Of One

I think Vitellius omitted the title of Caesar

JW gets them both. Vitellius usually did not put Augustus on denarii and never put Caesar. His first coins used a portrait that looked like Otho. Vitellius was in the north when Otho killed himself and forces loyal to Vitellius took Rome. This was April, 69. Vitellius himself arrive in Rome in July. It is most likely that this coin of the Rome mint dates to those first months before the die cutters had seen Vitellius but these portraits are too rare to make up nearly a third of the entire output of a reign that would not last to the end of the year. Certainly portraits of Vitellius arrived in Rome before he did in person so this coin is most likely from the time before that might happen, perhaps April. There is also a theory that the Otho portrait dies had been cut but not lettered so the mint just added the new legend without caring that the face was not right. Few people would have known what Vitellius looked like anyway? This sort of thing happens several times in Roman coins. We have Trajans that look like Nerva, Maximinus that looks like Severus Alexander, Gordian III that looks like Balbinus and perhaps others. An interesting collection could be formed from portrait mismatched coins but finding them would take some looking.

BTW: I love the Otho type shown by JW. The reverse reads VICTORIA OTHONIS. Otho was the first Roman emperor who was not related to Augustus. It took some higher level thinking to decide whether to complete the conversion of the old family names and titles to the new position that did not require being IN the family. AVG made the obverse as a title but this reverse made it clear just whose victory we were celebrating. There are a handful of other reverse uses of a specific ruler's name but they are not common. The coin is also what I call a Latin teacher's coin. Abbreviations are common on coins so Latin teachers should always watch out for legends with spelled out declensions (genitive, dative etc.). Another good one is the reverse of the Vitellius I posted most recently but the all time leader is the genitive of Constans (CONSTANTIS) on the obverse of some of his earliest coins.