Aurelian the savior!

For a while I was on a hunt to get my hand on a hoard coin of Aurelian. He is in my believe one of last strong emperors of rome who really revived it from going to fall in third century crisis. I eventually found a nice example from "South Petherton Hoard" with a fairly good price. I like people here share their thoughts on Aurelian and if they know any more details on his life and era please share!

 

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Well, he had an interesting time recapturing the Palmyrene Empire. Both Vabalathus and Zenobia were paraded in a triumph in Rome, but I remember that they were allowed to live. A nice change of pace for the era...

 

Nice hoard find, Arashpour. And that Valbalathus is a fine one too, ancient coin hunter.

I recently got my first Aurelian - a stomping on a captive type. It is my only "silvered" coin from that era.




Aurelian Antoninianus
(c. 270-275 A.D.)
Rome Mint
IMP AVRELIANVS AVG, radiate, cuirassed bust right / ORIENS AVG, Sol walking left, holding globe and raising right hand, foot on one of two bound captives. Mintmark X. RIC 62, X; Cohen 154.
(4.22 grams / 24 mm)

 

Great coins! I also have an ORIENS AVG, but a bit different:
Silvered antoninianus, RIC V 135, 4.282g, 22.7mm, Mediolanum.
Obverse IMP AVRELIANVS AVG, radiate and cuirassed bust right.
Reverse ORIENS AVG Sol standing half left, radiate, nude but for chlamys over shoulders and left arm, raising right hand commanding the sun to rise, globe in left hand, foot on captive left, P in exergue.

 

@ancient coin hunter Thanks for reminding the palmyra I totally forgot about that and I guess that is yet another reason I think he was one of the last emperors who tried to revive a dying empire to its old glory...

 

This is my nicest coin of Aurelian, doing some "world restoring".



Aurelian, Antoninianus, 270-275 AD

O: IMP C AVRELIANVS AVG; R: RESTITVT OR_BIS, Female standing right, presenting wreath to emperor standing left, scepter in left hand S in middle field XXI in exergue Antioch Mint; 23mm, 3.8g RIC V: 386

 

Sweet hoard coin - I don't have a coin provenanced to a particular hoard yet, but it's on the list of wants.

I do have this Aurelian which I'd like to upgrade at some point:


I'm sure you've seen the details of the "South Petherton Hoard" and I make note there were 52 Aurelian's found. A majority of the coins were returned to the finder and eventually sold for £48,800 (CoinWeek)

Here is a write-up on the hoard at York Coins

 

Let's see the reverse! (Are you going to crack it out? With the photo you can still prove it's from the hoard...)

 

Aurelian is one of my favs. Sadly his reign ended prematurely after just 5 years. But within that 5 years the empirial bad @$$ was able to completely take back all of the lands that Rome had lost in the last 50 years.
As I recall, one of his discontented secretaries/slaves created a fake execution list in the emporers hand and showed it to his top generals. The generals seeing their names on the list decided they must act swiftly and cut him down while he was on the side of the road taking a leak. Once the forgery was uncovered the secretary was beheaded. But the damage was done. One of the greatest of all the Augustii cut down by a forgery.
The saddest thing of all, I'm not a huge fan of his coins!
But here are some of mine...

 

@Ryro Interesting story and very sad! had he remained in power for more, I am sure Rome would go back to its glory. This is a lesson that shows what damages court intrigues have done in past!

 

@Severus Alexander Here is the reverse

 

Thanks! Photo is a bit on the tiny side. Why not crack it out and take a new photo?

 

The earliest coins of Aurelian were just as poorly made as late Gallienus on small flans. Shortly afterward he straightened out the problems at the mint requiring the workers there to do their jobs properly. This is known as the revolt of Felicissimus. A couple years later, we see the start of the coins marked XXI to indicate the coins contained the proper 20:1 alloy. I believe a collection of Aurelian needs at least one of the early, trashy coins


and piles of the later, better ones:

 

Speaking of shoddy mint work, how about a Claudius II Gothicus with a Gallienus reverse die? According to some notes I found in Wildwinds, this RIC 63 with Libertas, a scepter and an X in the field uses a Gallienus reverse die. Later Claudius II Libertas issues have a cornucopia, apparently.

I'll bet if Claudius had lived long enough, he would've put the hurt on the Rome mint workers just the way Aurelian did.





Claudius II Gothicus
Rome Mint - Æ Antoninianus
(268-270 A.D.)
IMP CLAVDIVS AVG, radiate & cuirassed bust right / LIBERT AVG, Libertas standing left, holding pileus & vertical scepter, X in right field. RIC 63 var.
(sceptre); cf Sear5 11349.
(Reverse dies of Gallienus used)
(2.66 grams / 19 mm)

 

Some of my more attractive Aurelian coins. I enjoy looking at the comically distorted portraits of the emperor, with long necks, bull-necks, and so forth.

 

It did not stop at the neck. Shoulders:

 

I think the Wildwinds info is inaccurate. There are recorded hybrids of Claudius II and Gallienus, but this reverse was common for CII, and on it, Libertas always holds a vertical sceptre, whereas on Gallienus's coins, we see her holding a transverse sceptre.

Additionally, the authors of RIC also made a mistake when they described Libertas as holding a cornucopiae for these Rome mint issues. They reference Cohen (Cohen 150-2), where she's described as holding a sceptre. She only holds a cornucopiae on issues from the Siscia mint.

This search page from the new RIC V/1 online database (really the best place to go to delve into coinage of CII, IMHO) will make things a lot clearer than I can explain .

 

bull neck, Serdica mint with a rare test bite