Unique Reverse For Salonina

442, Lot: 523. Estimate $200. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Salonina. Augusta, AD 254-268. Antoninianus (19mm, 2.68 g, 11h). Uncertain mint. SA[LONIN]A AVG, diademed and draped bust right on crescent / AETERN[ITAS], Aeternitas standing left, leaning on column, holding phoenix on globe and transverse sceptre. MIR 36, –; RIC V –; Cunetio –; I. Carradice, “The Market Deeping, Lincs., hoard” in Coin Hoards in Roman Britiain IV (1984), pp. 46 and 62, no. 2. VF, some silver content, porosity. Very rare.

Ex Glendining’s (30 September 1998), lot 139 (part of); Deeping St. James (Market Deeping), Lincolnshire, Hoard (1980) [IRBCH 699].

This reverse type seems to be paralleled in the entire Roman imperial coinage only on coins of the deified Faustina II, wife of Marcus Aurelius (denarius RIC 740, BMC 709-710 and Plate 67, 18; sestertii RIC 1693). The design is sufficiently close to that on the Faustina coins to indicate that it must have been deliberately copied from a surviving specimen nearly a century later. Sylistically this coin appears to be attributable to either Rome or Siscia, and it was probably minted in the mid to late 260s AD. Since it is clear that Salonina was still alive at this time, it is strange that a posthumous type for an earlier empress was re-used, but the message is clear enough – the eternal Roman empire will arise, phoenix-like, from its current crises under the protection of the imperial family.