SALONINA AD 254-268 AE Antoninianus. 3.09g, 23.1mm MINTED: Antioch mint, AD 266-267 REF: RIC 88 corr. (mintmark); Cohen 105; MIR 1656h

OBVERSE: SALONINA AVG, diademed and draped bust right on crescent. REVERSE: SALVS AVG, Salus standing front, head to right, feeding serpent out of patera.

Provenance:

Ex Dipl.-Ing. Adrian Lang Collection

Notes: Fully silvered surfaces with an attractive Antioch style portrait. Minor edge splitting.   

Historical Notes:

Cornelia Salonina, the wife of Emperor Gallienus, was said to have been a woman of beauty and intelligence.  Despite the fact that the mid 3rd century was a period of constant upheaval for the empire, Salonina helped her husband nurture a revival of the arts in Rome.  She was a patron of writers and philosophers and especially admired the Neoplatonic scholar Plotinus.  In the course of the wars her husband had to fight, she lost two of her sons, Valerian II and Saloninus.  Gallienus himself was assassinated while beseiging the rebel Aureolus at Milan in 268, and in the purges of his family that followed, Salonina was probably executed along with their youngest son, Marinianus.