Silver Antoninianus of Valerian I (253-260 CE), minted in Lugdunum (Gallia), 258-259 CE
Diameter: 2.25cm
Description
Obverse:
VALERIANVS P F AVG
Valerianus Pius Felix Augustus
Bust of emperor Valerian’s profile facing right and wearing a radiate crown tied with ribbons. He is also wearing some sort of military cuirass and cloak. The border is a ring of dots.
Reverse:
[O]RIENS AVGG
(Oriens Augustorum)
Sol (sun god) nude, walking towards the left with his right arm extended upwards. He is holding in his left hand a whip, wearing a cloak around his shoulders, and has radiate beams around his head. The border is thin and wreath-like just like on the obverse and part of it is cut off on the right side from when it was struck. There is some general wear on the coin that makes the wording slightly difficult to read as it has worn down from use over time.
Commentary
This coin is a silver Antoninianus of Valerian I, minted in Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France). This type of coin was commonly found throughout the Roman Empire during Valerian’s rule. There are multiple versions of this particular issue, with the obverse side showing Valerian I wearing a sun crown and the reverse showing Sol, the sun god. Valerian was a senator and military commander before he served as emperor from 253 to 260. After being appointed, he then appointed his son, Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus, to rule alongside him (Reiner 2006). Valerian was part of a very chaotic time of frequently changing rulers in the Roman Empire. In a fifty year period, from 235 to 285, there were at least twenty emperors with the majority dying in battle or by assassination. Valerian himself was captured and died as a prisoner of war of Persia.
The obverse legend reads: VALERIANVS PF AVG, short for “Valerianus Pius Felix Augustus” meaning “Valerian (the) pious fortunate Augustus.” The epithet “Pius Felix” conveys respect for an emperor’s ruling, as “dutiful and fortunate” (Forum Ancient Coins). “Augustus” means “revered” and was a standard title for all Roman emperors. PF AVG is one of the most frequent abbreviations on Late Roman coins, with nearly 10,000 examples in the OCRE beginning in the reign of Elagabalus in the early third century CE.
On the obverse, Valerian wears a military cuirass and cloak and a radiate crown. The cuirass is likely a nod to him being a “barrack emperor,” one of the emperors who was chosen and supported by the army during an extended period of unrest in the third century CE (Mark 2017). The crown is illustrated as a headpiece with spikes, which are representative of the sun’s rays, thus “radiate” crown. The crown is shown fastened with a ribbon that hangs down the back of the neck. Radiate crowns are a commonly seen symbol on Roman coins (see, for example, an Antoninianus of Aurelian, RIC V Aurelian 244) and are associated with the sun god, Sol Invictus (Bardill 2012). Tiberius was the first emperor who depicted this crown on an individual, which he did on Augustus after his deification (Sebesta 2001). The main purpose of the radiate crown on Roman currency is to underscore the value of the coin. This coin of Valerian is a silver antoninianus, a value that was introduced by Caracalla during his reign. Caracalla needed a way to signal that the coin’s value was twice as much as that of the existing denarii. The radiate crown was used as this symbol, included on the ruler’s bust on the obverse side of the antoninianus (Bland 2012). This is why some Valerian coins that differ in value (compare, for example, a gold aureus of Valerian, RIC V Valerian 41) depict him wearing a laurel wreath or other headpiece instead of the crown. Valerian likely included the crown to identify the currency, but through this inclusion he is able compare himself to not only a god, but to previous emperors who are pictured with radiate crowns in portraiture. In the context of the coin, he takes his relation to the sun god one step further by depicting Sol on the reverse side.
The reverse legend reads ORIENS AVGG. Oriens is the present participle meaning “rising” or “East.” AVG means Augustus, another term for emperor. The double “G” at the end of AVG refers to two rulers or “Augusti,” so the reverse legend means “rising of (two) emperors/Augusti” (Stevenson 1889, 588). The plural “Augusti” must refer to Valerian and his co-ruler and son, Gallienus, whom he appointed to rule the western part of the empire while he ruled the east (Wasson, 2017). Perhaps this is why the sun is used to symbolize Valerian’s reign. The sun rises in the east, starting with Valerian, and sets in the west, ending with Gallienus. The sun also works well to symbolize the Roman reign because it is consistent and rises everyday, much like the consistency of the Romans, as they continuously gained more and more territory to strengthen their empire. The legend ‘Oriens Aug(g)’ is found on many Late Roman coins of various denominations, beginning with Gordian III (OCRE; RIC IV Gordian III 213; Manders 2012, 127-129).
The reverse shows Sol, the sun god, walking to the left with his right arm raised. Sol is shown carrying the whip he uses to drive his sun chariot in his left hand with his characteristic radiate beams around his head. His appearance on this coin is traditionally Greco-Roman, but Sol was one of the few gods who was observable across cultural boundaries due to the inherent omnipresence of the sun itself (Steyn 2014). Sol was present on coins throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries because Roman emperors aimed to associate themselves with Sol’s qualities in order to assert their power (Welch 2009). The sun was a symbol of authority and stability, so by placing his image on the reverse of their coins, the emperors are implying divine approval of their rule (Steyn 2014). In the third century, when Valerian ruled, Sol was associated with military victory, especially in the East (Steyn 2014). This association was important to maintain loyalty of the army as many coins were distributed to soldiers as payment for their service. The choice to represent Sol on coins tells us about the political and religious climate of the time as the emperors were aiming to cast themselves as powerful and comforting symbols able to bring light and stability during a tumultuous time in the empire (Steyn 2014). An even more militaristic depiction of Sol can be seen on an Antoninianus of Aurelian in the American Numismatic Society collection where Sol is holding a globe to signify his reign over the cosmos (Welch 2009) and has a captive at his feet (see http://numismatics.org/collection/1948.19.923). A similar silver coin of Valerian also features Sol carrying a globe to again convey his dominion over all (http://numismatics.org/collection/1944.100.27182).
As the empire changed hands so many times over this period, fewer architectural monuments were built, therefore coins were the most effective way to increase visibility of the emperor (Steyn 2014). Especially since coins were so widely used, changing hands constantly and staying in circulation even after emperors died or were out of power, they also functioned as memorials to the emperor’s legacy. Thus Roman coins during the third century and later could serve as a substitute for imperial architecture and monuments. This Valerian coin in particular reflects similar use of Jupiter’s iconography as another coin in the Lora Robins collection (R1979-11-0147) with Sol’s whip resembling the idea of Jupiter’s scepter (Steyn 2014) To this end, it was typical of Valerian and other emperors of the time to use Sol’s iconography on coins as a way to represent the rising prosperity and new opportunities for success brought about by their rule.
Works cited:
Bardill, Jonathan. 2012. Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bland, Roger. 2012. “From Gordian III to the Gallic Empire.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage, edited by William E. Metcalf. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed December 6, 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195305746.001.0001
Eckardt, Stephan. 2015. “Antoninian, 258 – 259 AD Rome, Imperial Era Valerian.” Kenom Digital Coin Catalogue, University of Göttingen. https://www.kenom.de/id/record_DE-MUS-062622_kenom_158546
Forum Ancient Coins. 2009. “PF AVG.” NumisWiki – The Collaborative Numismatics Project. Forum Ancient Coins. Accessed December 10, 2020. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=p%20f%20avg
Manders, Erika. 2012. Coining Images of Power. Patterns in the Representation of Roman Emperors on Imperial Coinage, A.D. 193-284. Leiden: Brill. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004224001
Mark, Joshua J. 2017. “The Barracks Emperors.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Accessed December 4, 2020. www.ancient.eu/Barracks_Emperors/.
OCRE. Online Coins of the Roman Empire, American Numismatic Society. http://numismatics.org/ocre/.
Reiner, Erica. 2006. “The Reddling Of Valerian.” The Classical Quarterly 56(1): 325–29. DOI: 10.1017/S0009838806000358
Stevenson, Seth William. 1889. A Dictionary of Roman Coins, Republican and Imperial. London: G. Bell and Sons. Accessed on Forum Ancient Coins, December 10, 2020.
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=ORIENS%20AVGG
Steyn, Danielle. 2014. “Chasing the Sun: Coinage and Solar Worship in the Roman Empire of the Third and Early Fourth Centuries CE.” Records of the Canterbury Museum 28 (Aug): 31-47.
Wasson, Donald. 2017. “Valerian”. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Accessed December 4, 2020. https://www.ancient.eu/valerian
Welch, Bill. 2009. “Sol And Oriens – the Rise and Fall of a Superhero.” The Sign Language of Roman Coins, Forum Ancient Coins. Accessed December 6 2020. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/reverse_sol.html.
Coin type: RIC V Valerian 12; Sear 9952 (assigned to “Cologne, AD 257-9”)
Research by: Michelle Rutledge, Class of 2023; Amelia Schultz, Class of 2024; Katherine Mazzer, Class of 2024