LEG II PART

442, Lot: 367. Estimate $100. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gallienus. AD 253-268. Antoninianus (20.5mm, 3.76 g, 12h). Mediolanum (Milan) mint. Issue 2(2), AD 260-1. GALLIENVS AVG, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / LEG II PART VI P VI F, centaur walking left, holding globe. MIR 36, 996h; RIC V (joint reign) 335 var. (bust type); Cunetio –. VF, flan cracks.

Bought from Paul-Francis Jacquier, 1992. Ex Jacquier FPL 14 (Autumn 1992), no. 314.

Legio II Parthica owed its birth to Septimius Severus, who raised the legion for his Parthian wars circa AD 193-197. It was the first true legion (as opposed to the Praetorian Cohorts) to be permanently stationed in Italy, at the fortress of Albanum in the Alban Hills south of Rome. As such it served as a counterweight to the Praetorians while helping to secure the Severan Dynasty’s grip on power. It also served as a central reserve at a time when the main military forces of the empire were dispersed to the frontiers. II Parthica accompanied Severus and Caracalla in their campaigns on the eastern frontier. During the brief civil war of AD 218, it helped return to the Severans to power by switching sides from Macrinus to Elagabalus. II Parthica remained loyal to Gallienus in the mid-third century, after which it disappears from history until AD 360, where it is recorded as back on the eastern frontier, defending against a Sasanian invasion. A fifth century AD chronicle places it at Cefa in Mesopotamia. Its symbol was a centaur.