Ron Walters struck gold after six years of searching the same field near Dudley, West Midlands, every spring and autumn when the crops weren’t sown.
 | It's believed to be the first gold aureus of Vitellius to ever be recorded in the British Isles. | |
 | The very rare 1,955-year-old coin was auctioned and fetched $6,000, which was split with the field’s owner. Aulus Vitellius was Roman emperor for eight months from 19 April to 20 December AD 69. Vitellius followed the quick succession of Galba and Otho, in the Year of the Four Emperors. Suetonius in particular painted Vitellius as an obese glutton. Vitellius was executed in Rome by Vespasian's soldiers on 20 December 69.
"Yet I was once your emperor," were his last words. His body was thrown into the Tiber according to Suetonius; Cassius Dio's account is that Vitellius was beheaded and his head paraded around Rome, and his wife attended to his burial. His brother and son were also killed.
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