Ex Jameson, Arthur Evans, John Evans, and Ponton D’Amécourt Collections
Calicó and Schulte Plate Coin

Triton XXI, Lot: 836. Estimate $40000. Sold for $47500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Victorinus. Romano-Gallic Emperor, AD 269-271. AV Aureus (20.5mm, 5.33 g, 6h). Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne) mint. Group I, late AD 269. IMP CAES VICTORINVS AVG, laureate bust right, slight drapery / COME S AVG, Victory, draped, standing left, holding wreath in outstretched right hand and palm frond in left. RIC V 94 var. (bust type); Schulte 5a (this coin, illustrated on pl. 17); Calicó 3811 (this coin illustrated); Kent & Hirmer 517; Jameson 461 (this coin); Biaggi 1539 var. (break in rev. legend). Good VF, light edge smoothing, few minor marks and a small pin prick in field on reverse. Very rare.

Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 51 (5 March 2009), lot 394; European Nobleman Collection (Numismatica Ars Classica 24, 5 December 2002), lot 203; Sotheby’s (5 July 1995), lot 159; Numismatic Fine Arts XXVI (14 August 1991), lot 293; Münzen und Medaillen AG XII (11 June 1953), lot 848; R. Jameson Collection, 461; Sir Arthur J. Evans Collection (Ars Classica III, 16 June 1922), lot 132; Sir John Evans Collection; Vicomte Gustave Ponton d’Amécourt Collection (Rollin & Feuardent, 25 April 1887), lot 548.

Victorinus hailed from a wealthy Gallic family, serving in the army and eventually becoming praetorian tribune and consul of the Gallic Empire under Postumus. Assuming the purple after the murder of Postumus, Victorinus initially met with limited support. The province of Hispania broke away, returning to the fold of the central Roman Empire, while southern Gaul threatened to do the same. Victorinus managed to hold onto Gaul only to meet his death a few years later, at the hands of a jealous general whose wife he was rumored to have seduced.