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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 5006617, member: 72790&quot;]One of the things we like to do here is write and read about the interesting characters of antiquity. Often we like to evaluate their performance as part of our interests. Today I would like to have us take a closer look at the Roman Emperor known to us as Aurelianus. if one were to ask of us or the average man-in-the-street passer by to name some important Roman emperors, I would venture that Aurelianus would not be among them but those of us who know their emperors might rate him as one of the most capable of rulers who did more in his five years of rule (270-275AD) than most did over a much longer period and one who had to face enormous difficulties from the first to his last day in office and every day in between.</p><p><br /></p><p>First a word about our sources for this remarkable emperor. We simply do not have the sources available that we have for other periods of Roman History. No Tacitus or Suetonius, no Dio Cassius or Herodian. We have a contemporary of Aurelianus, one Publius Herrenius Dexippus who was not that much of an historian (but as a civilian official may have had some claim to fame as a defender of Athens in the 260&#039;s from a Gothic incursion).&nbsp; He did know the emperor first hand. An Athenian historian by the name of Philostratus also mentions him a bit and a later Roman, (or early Byzantine) by the name of Zosimus mentions him. Dexippus seems to have been cited by the author(s) of the later Historia Augusta (which as good history is about as reliable as a Ouija board for weather forecasting). Not that much out there which is a shame as from what we do know about the man, the more we wish we had to go on.</p><p><br /></p><p>Aurelianus was born about 214 AD, probably in Illyricum to what appear to have been free Roman peasants and perhaps were citizens only after Caracalla&#039;s gift of citizenship to most free Romans in 212 AD. As a young man he joined the army about the time of the death of Severus Alexander (235), did well, and rose in rank. That was not necessarily that hard to do as this was a period of intense fighting for the Empire and promotions from high casualties must have helped a talented (and lucky) soldier move up quickly. By the reign of Claudius II (Gothicus) Aurelianus was Magister Equitum (master of horse) and commander of the elite Dalmatian cavalry. After the death of Claudius II, probably from disease, a rare cause of death for a Third Century emperor, he assumed the purple after the former emperor&#039;s brother was disposed of.</p><p><br /></p><p>The actual years of Aurelian&#039;s reign are fairly well known. He assumed the throne at a time when the empire had literally gone to pieces with the Eastern provinces, savaged earlier by the resurgent Sassanian Persians, now under the rule of Zenobia, a fascinating ruler herself, who having saved her Palmyra from the Persians planned on keeping it for herself and son. Twice Aurelianus had to invade Palmyra before he was able to restore it to Rome where Zenobia graced his Triumph with her presence. By the way, the emperor did not have her killed. She remained in Rome, married a Roman senator and presumably lived happily ever after. What was even more of a problem was the Gallic Empire set up by Postumus who fought tooth and nail to keep that breakaway portion of the Empire from returning to Roman administration. Aurelianus, however pulled it off and while doing it, managed to fight off waves of Germanic invaders. At the time of his murder by his own officers in 275, the Empire , though now shorn of Dacia, looked pretty good.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now this brings us to the most interesting part of his restoration of the world, that is, his &quot;reform of the coinage&quot;. Some numismatists here know that the double denarius (antoninianus) of the Third century had been declining in the fineness of its silver (ca. 50% initially) from almost the moment it was first minted ca. 215 AD. By the time of Claudius II the coin looked to have no silver in it at all. Most modern readers of Roman History have assumed that this constant debasement of the coinage must have led to rampant inflation. Oddly enough the evidence is that it did not. Reading the works of Kenneth Harl, (Coinage in the Roman Economy,pp. 146-147, David S. Potter, the Roman Empire at Bay, pp. 273 and following, and the article in chapter 29 of the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage by Sylviane Estiot pp. 538-548, and Christopher Howgego, Ancient History from Coins, pp.125-127, it appears that Romans had adjusted to the decreasing fineness of their silver as long as it was convertible to&nbsp; the gold aureus at the official rate of 25 silver denarii to one pure gold aureus. In a sense the once almost pure silver denarius (and its double, the antoninianus) had become a token coinage whose value depended on its official status and acceptance in the market place, not its intrinsic bullion value. That seems to have been the case up until the coinage reforms of Aurelian. His silver coinage looked silver and its style made it a much more handsome coin. It also touched off a raging inflation as prices seem to have risen some five fold very quickly. It appears that all previous coinage was demonetized and called in leaving the average Roman consumer with handsome silvered coins of Aurelian and a lot of now useless mostly copper junk. There is still much uncertainty about his monetary reform but in his effort to get his coins into circulation (and his predecessors out of circulation) he may have seriously damaged the economy by questioning the credibility of a fiduciary token coinage. Perhaps in this area Aurelianus&#039;s reform was not a plus for the Empire. Readers may want to investigate this last matter further, themselves. Still not a bad run at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Below are some of the coins of the period. First, in the middle, is a wretched coin of Claudius II (Sear 3215) which, for us, at 2.5 grams, does not inspire much confidence from its appearance. Next, right and left,&nbsp; are two coins of the breakaway Gallic Empire of Postumus a double denarius of 3.4 grams (Sear 10936) which still has enough silver in it to look silverish and a double sestertius (16.4 grams, Sear 11043). Next are two of the reformed coins of Aurelianus which do appear to be of good style and enough silver to make them presentable in appearance (Sear11587 , 11572) both weigh 4.3 grams. The last coin is a double denarius of Probus who ruled a few years after Aurelianus. It looks even more impressive in its silvering and weighs 4.2 grams.</p><p><br /></p><p>So tell us what you think of the emperor credited with being the &quot;Restitutor Orbis&quot; or about what his coinage reforms actually represented beyond a better appearance.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1201256[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1201257[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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