Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Terence Cheesman, post: 7772873, member: 86498"]Aurelian Av Aureus 271-272 AD Milan Obv Bust right laureate draped and cuirassed Rv. Victory advancing left with captive seated before her. Estiot 422 4.28 grms 21 mm Photo by W. Hansen[ATTACH=full]1333107[/ATTACH]Aurelian certainly managed to reunite the Roman Empire by overcoming the two secessionist states of Palmyra to the east and the Gallic Empire to the west. He however was unable to solve the problem of the essential political instability inherent in the Roman Imperial state. I once read that the Roman Empire was an absolute monarchy with the constitutional right to revolt. To some degree this description is true and this instability was the main incentive behind the foundation of the tetrarchy by Diocletian  The reforms of the coinage by Aurelian are the we tend to notice the most. The very light aureus coinage ( roughly 1.6 grams) of Gallienus minted during the last two years of his reign was ended and the aureus was restored to roughly 5. grams part way through the reign of Claudius Gothicus. However Aurelian tackled the much more difficult problem of restoring the Antoninianus coinage (His reformed coins are often referred to as an Aurelianus). He managed to restore the size of the coin however the purity remained at roughly 5%. He di also mint small numbers of denarii as well as an aes coinage usually referred to as an as but probably was a sestertius.[/QUOTE]