Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 1134. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $3750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GALLA PLACIDIA, wife of Constantius III and mother of Valentinian III. AV Solidus (4.43 gm). Rome mint. Struck 425-426 AD. D N GALLA PLA-CIDIA P F AVG, pearl-diademed and draped bust right, wearing necklace, Christogram on right shoulder; crowned by Manus Dei / VOT XX MVLT XXX, Victory standing left holding long jeweled cross in right hand, star above; R-M/COMOB. RIC X 2007; Depeyrot 45/2; DOCLR 826. EF, light scratch in obverse field. Rare. ($3000)

From the William H. Williams Collection.

Galla Placidia was born around 390 and lived one of the most eventful lives of late antiquity. Daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I and his second wife, Galla (herself daughter of the Emperor Valentinian I), Galla Placidia was half sister of the emperors Honorius and Arcadius. Captured by Alaric, king of the Visigoths, in the course of his Italian campaign in 410, she was held as a hostage, and in 414 was married to Alaric's successor Athaulf. After the murder of Athaulf in 415, she was at first ill-treated but was returned in 416 to her brother Honorius. In 417, she married her second husband, Constantius, a general who was made co-emperor, as Constantius III, in 421. She bore a son, who became Valentinian III, and his more strong-willed sister, Honoria. In 423 she quarrelled with Honorius and fled to the court of Theodosius II. After the death of Honorius, she became regent in the West for her son Valentinian III, whom Theodosius placed on the throne after overthrowing the usurper John in 425. It was for this occasion that the above issue was struck. She had great personal influence over her son, but she was forced to leave the government largely in the hands of general Aetius. Her final years were devoted to the erection of churches and other sacred buildings in Ravenna, and she died at Rome on November 27, 450.