Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 1063. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $8500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LICINIA EUDOXIA, wife of Valentinian III and Petronius Maximus. Augusta, 439-490. AV Solidus (4.50 gm). Ravenna mint. Struck 437 439 AD. D N ELIA EVDO-XIA P F AVG, pearl-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right, wearing necklace and earring, crowned by manus Dei / SALVS REI-PVBLICAE, Victory standing left holding long jeweled cross; R-V/COMOB. RIC X -; Depeyrot -; DOCLR -; MIRB -. EF. Unpublished; the reverse type is unknown for Eudoxia. ($5000)

Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of Theodosius II and Aelia Eudoxia, was married to the emperor in the West, Valentinian III in 437 AD, when she was fifteen years old. Two years later, in 439, she was proclaimed Augusta. J.P.C. Kent, in a somewhat confused commentary on the coinage of Eudoxia (RIC X, pg. 165) states that her earliest coinage was "composed of her die-linked tremisses and half-siliquae with the legend D N Elia Eudoxia P F Avg", while earlier stating "The rare but undoubtedly authentic solidi of Licinia Eudoxia were, for the most part, struck at Ravenna, almost certainly soon after she received the title of Augusta there, 6 August 439...the reverse shows the empress enthroned...the obverse legend is LICINIA EVDOXIA P F AVG." Confusion is compounded within the catalogue itself, when he places the tremissis with her name given as "Aelia" in the Italian coinage issues after circa 450 AD (RIC X 2074).

Taking this unrecorded solidus into account, we can presume there was a coherent coinage in the name of Licinia Eudoxia early in her life; the emphasis on her maternal praenomen might suggest this coinage was struck between her marriage and her proclamation, with the "AVG[usta]" being anticipatory. The obverse style and reverse Victory type, otherwise unattested for Eudoxia, ties this solidus to the issues of Galla Placidia and Justa Grata Honoria, the mother and sister, respectively, of Valentinian. Kent presumed these issues ended with his marriage, and thus 437-439 AD is suggested as the maximum date range for the Eudoxia (as Aelia) coinage. Eudoxia was Valentinian's wife at the time of his murder in 455 AD, and was then forcibly married to his successor Petronius Maximus. Less than three months later, Petronius was killed during the Vandal attack on Rome; the Vandal king Gaiseric supposedly having been prompted to the move by beseeching letters from Eudoxia. Eudoxia in any case spent several years at the Vandal court in Carthage before returning to Constantinople.