The image on this coin, held at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library at Penn, resonates with so many issues in the tangled history of Jewish/Gentile relations in Mediterranean antiquity. It commemorates the defeat of the Jews - thus the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple in 70 C.E. - while at the same time it broadcasts the divine favor shown to the victors, Titus and his father, Vespasian. Vespasian had emerged the winner from the imperial sweepstakes that had paralyzed the Empire in 69 C.E., "the year of the four emperors." Nero's sudden death had abruptly ended the Judeo-Claudian line, and power was up for grabs. (This dynastic collapse itself had encouraged Judea's revolt.) The Roman victory went a long way toward shoring up the fledgling Flavian dynasty's prestige and auctoritas. Vespasian wanted the news of his victory circulated - literally - as widely as possible.

Roman art customarily depicted cities as feminine: indeed, Roma was worshiped as a goddess throughout the imperium. On the verso of this coin, however, only Judea/Jerusalem is gendered female: she sits in the dust, hand on head, contemplating her ignominy. Rome's victory is gendered male - the standing soldier/emperor/god looks down upon his humiliated captive. Heaven favors the victor, says this coin; heaven favored the Flavians, and Rome.

Though later Christians claimed to worship the same supreme god as the Jews, this image of Judea's defeat remained a positive one for them. Gentile Christians associated Jerusalem's destruction with Judaism's rejection of Christian claims for Christ: indeed, the canonical gospels, each written after 70, place the "prediction" of the temple's destruction into the speech of their main character, Jesus of Nazareth. What began as a purely pagan sound bite, the image on this coin, ultimately grew into a major Christian claim: the imperial church also held that heaven favors victors: through the Jews' loss, claimed the bishops and emperors, Christianity had "won."