SALONINA
AD 254-268
AE Antoninianus. 3.42g, 21.2mm
MINTED: Rome mint, AD 260-262
REF: RIC V 24; MIR 492a
OBVERSE: SALONINA AVG, diademed and draped bust right, resting on crescent.
REVERSE: PVDICITIA, Pudicitia standing left raising veil and holding scepter; Q in right field.

Grade/Notes: 
Good Very Fine.  Dark brown surfaces. Well centered. Minor flan crack. 
 
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.