Featured A most obscure Roman Emperor

The subject of this thread is tangentially related to questions that I proposed recently in a thread called "Who were Emperors and who are Not". This is a question that I personally find interesting, but unfortunately didn't garner much attention when posed.

I'm a completionist at heart, so I have a strong desire to obtain an example coin of every person for which Roman coins were issued over my time period of interest. Unfortunately, budgetary considerations make this goal unrealistic, so I have to whittle the list down significantly. Aside from obvious cost considerations, I do most of the whittling based on how interesting the person's story is to tell. After all, telling the stories to others while viewing the coins is the primary enjoyment that I get out of owning them in the first place.

Flavius Victor's story would amount to: "Was named co-emperor by his father, who managed to usurp power for a couple of years, then died". Hence, he was cut from the list.

I also kept myself entertained for a while by making a list of "Emperors that were actually emperors", based on criteria by which I'd define that type of thing. Poor old Victor didn't make that list either.

This isn't intended to take anything away from the siliqua though. That is a fantastic, rare coin that I wouldn't kick out of my collection for eating crackers! Maybe my budgetary considerations will change someday, and then I can get them all!

 

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savitale, That's a handsome coin & excellent writeup !

 

I bought this Flavius Victor AE4 in 1983. At the time I was getting a few thin paper catalogs a month and Flavius Victor coins were seldom seen.



14-13 mm. 1.16 grams.
RIC Aquileia 55b.
ex Empire Coins, Spring 1983 list, lot 3828 "very rare with full legends, VF."

 

Rules changed as the Republic became a distant memory. I think we need to allow for the fact that an emperor could wrap his infant son in a toga and people who valued their lives would not complain. Certainly Victor was young but I am unclear on how people are certain of the numbers they attach to him.

 

I just wanted to chime in and add my humble Flavius Victor to the group.
He just came in the mail today. It was unattributed and I got him for $7.25. This thread was perfect timing because I had bought it just a few days earlier and was trying to find whatever info I could on Flavius Victor.


Flavius Victor
AE4
Aquileia
387-388 AD
Obverse: DN FL VIC-TOR PF AVG, pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right
Reverse: SPES RO-MA-NORVM, campgate, six layers, two beacons, star above, no doors. Mintmark SMAQS

 

Nice coin/ supberb history lesson.

I do not think I can afford the Flavius Victor, but will try to get his Dads Solidus.

 

If anyone can do it, it's you!

 

Wikipedia quotes an interesting idea that there were more coins for Victor than for his father Magnus Maximus. my observations do not support this. It is footnoted to a PhD dissertation turned book
McEvoy, Meaghan A. (2013). Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367-455
that is available in hardback on Amazon for more than the amount of my interest in the subject. However, there are several very long reviews on Amazon that would talk me out of the purchase even if the price ($134 new, $188 used) did not. When a very long and tedious review criticizes a book for being long and tedious, I run, even if it is a four star review. I have to wonder where the author got her material in a period not terribly full of reliable histories. I'm sure the book would tell me but I am unlikely ever to see it. Has anyone here read it?

I have seen more of his father:

 

I haven't, but at this point I'm not sure I'd admit it even if I had.

 

Great quote -

 

That is an incredible coin @savitale my only Flavius Victor is a much more modest AE4 of Aquileia (SR-20675, RIC IX 55b)

 

These used to be very rare but now they are becoming more and more available. I wonder if we will see a similar situation as with the AEs of Procopius in terms of actual rarity.