LEG XI CL
Second Known V P V F for this Legion

442, Lot: 402. Estimate $300. Sold for $450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gallienus. AD 253-268. Antoninianus (23.5mm, 2.67 g, 6h). Mediolanum (Milan) mint. Issue 2(2), AD 260-1. GALLIENVS AVG, radiate and cuirassed bust right / LEG XI CL V P V F, Neptune standing right, holding trident and dolphin. MIR 36, 1013n; RIC V –; Cunetio –. Fine, some silver content, rough and pitted. Extremely rare, only one noted by MIR (in a private collection).

Bought from Baldwin's, 1994.

All legionary antoniniani with V P V F reverses are extremely rare. MIR records just one example of LEG XI CL. King (1984) was not aware of any. This coin was published by Thiry (2013, p. 133, no. 2) as the second recorded specimen, from the same reverse die as the MIR specimen. Again it seems probable that only one reverse die was cut for the striking of these very rare issues.Legio XI Claudia was another Caesarian foundation, serving with him in Gaul from 58 BC and through the subsequent civil war, until its first disbandment in 45 BC. Like several other of Caesar’s legions, it was reconstituted by Octavian circa 43 BC and served him through the subsequent Trimviral era and the Antonian civil war of 32-30 BC. After the Varian disaster of AD 9, Legio XI was shifted from the Balkans to Dalmatia to shore up the endangered frontier. Along with its sister Legio VII, it became embroiled in a plot against Claudius in AD 42, but ultimately remained loyal to him and thus won the epithet Claudia Pia Fidelis. In AD 69 it staged a lightning invasion of Italy in support of Vespasian and won the Second Battle of Bedriacum over the legions of Vitellius. For some decades thereafter it was based at Vindonissa (modern Windisch) in upper Germany before settling into a new camp at Durostorum (modern Silistra, Bulgaria) circa AD 106. It remained steadfastly loyal to Gallienus in the chaotic mid third century AD. It was still at Durostorum circa AD 400, as recorded in the Notatia Dignitatum. Unusually for a Caesarian legion, its symbol was not a bull, but the sea god Neptune.