SALONINA AD 254-268 Billon Antoninianus. 3.36g, 23.7mm MINTED: Antioch mint, AD 263 REF: RIC 92 OBVERSE: SALONINA AVG, Draped bust right, wearing stephane; crescent at shoulder. REVERSE: IVNO REGINA, Juno standing left, holding patera and scepter; star to upper left, peacock at feet to left.

Grade/Notes:

Extremely Fine.  Good metal for the period.

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.