Victorinus

The coinage of Victorinus is much more interesting and varied than that of his successors. The Trier mint in particular developed a distinct military theme such as the legionary series of reverses in gold. However, it is the Cologne mint that continued the almost exclusive use of cuirassed busts. Another change is the shift to Sol becoming the major deity and given greater prominence on the coinage.

In addition to his gold aurei there are some extremely rare quinarii, equally rare white-metal denarii and a large bronze medallion. The bulk of the coinage is, of course, poor quality antoniniani, with a negligible silver content and an observed weight range from 1.4g to 3.3g, the bulk of it between

2.6g and 3g. Only in the first issues can coins be found that retain any semblance of a silver wash: on the rest it has long since vanished. The huge increase in the demand for antoniniani to offset inflationary pressure led to a rapid fall in production standards, accompanied by a rise in the proportion of coins that depart from the orderly sequence that had previously prevailed.. This confusion of issues, which mirrored the same phenomenon in the coinage of Gallienus and Claudius II, consisted of mules, short-lived changes and straightforward errors and omissions. What was needed was more and more coins, not a punctilious adherence to past methods. As a consequence, antoniniani of Victorinus are common, with many hundreds and sometimes thousands turning up in 3^rd century hoards, but finding nice, well-struck examples with fairly complete legends is very difficult, made more so by the continued use of reverse dies after they had been flattened or worn out.

With the antoniniani of Victorinus it is possible to arrange them in sequence based on changes in the obverse legend. At both mints the longest legend is associated with portrait busts resembling those of Marius.

Cologne mint

IMP C PI VICTORINVS AVG

IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG

Trier mint

IMP C M PIAVVONIVS VICTORINVS P F AVG

IMP C PIAV VICTORINVS P F AVG

IMP CAES VICTORINVS P F AVG

IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG or IMP C VICTORINVS•P•F•AVG

What is set out below is a precis, summarising the main components of each issue and not an attempt at cataloguing every coin. For the full picture reference should be made to, e.g, the Cunetio and Normanby reports, until such time as a new edition of Roman Imperial Coinage is available.

Cologne Mint
Issue	Obverse	Reverse	RIC V	Elmer
1	IMP C PI VICTORINVS AVG Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right (bust resembling Marius)	AEQVITAS AVG Aequitas standing left holding scales and cornucopiae	-	700
	IMP C PI VICTORINVS AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust right (bust resembling Marius)		-	701
	IMP C PI VICTORINVS AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust right (bust of Victorinus)		-	702
2a	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right (bust resembling Marrius)	SALVS AVG Salus standing right, feeding a snake held in right hand from a patera held in left	67	703
2b	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust right		67	732
	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust left		67	733
	IMP C VICTORINVS•P•F•AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust left		-	--
	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield		67
	IMP VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right		-
	IMP VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield		-
3	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust right	PIETAS AVG Pietas standing left, sacrificing over small altar	57	741
	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield		-
4	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate, cuirassed bust right	FORT REDVX Fortuna seated left on a wheel, holding a rudder and a cornucopiae	47	737
5		VICTORIA AVG Victory walking left, holding wreath and palm	-	744
6		PROVIDENTIA AVG Providentia standing left, holding a baton and a cornucopiae, globe at feet.	61	743

A feature of Trier coins, first noted by Le Gentilhomme in 1942, is that sometimes there is a small branch near the feet of the standing figure of those with legend PAX AVG and mint mark V | ¬ . In his report on the 1973 Beachy Head hoard, Bland also suggested that the parallel type, INVICTVS, with mint mark ¬ | also had a “hieroglyph” resembling a leaf, behind the cloak worn by Sol. Having examined several hundred of these coins, I am unconvinced of this. On the INVICTVS coins, the leaf/hieroglyph appears to be just a detached part of Sol’s cloak, an individual quirk of the engraver and therefore has no real numismatic significance. This personal view is reinforced by similar, but unremarked, coins of Postumus, for example antoniniani with ORIENS AVG reverse, which may be by the same artist, and on PIETAS AVG and SALVS AVG coins of Victorinus, where part of the robe is also detached.

Left to right: Victorinus, reverse PAX AVG with branch below the star; Victorinus, reverse INVICTVS with alleged “leaf” in right field; Postmus, reverse ORIENS AVG with similar mark in right field, together with Victorinus reverses PIETAS AVG and SALVS AVG from the Cologne mint where part of the robe detached.

Trier Mint
Issue	Obverse	Reverse	RIC V	Elmer
1a	IMP C M PI AVVONIVS VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right, (resembling Marius	FIDES MILITVM Fides standing left, holding a standard in each hand	108	648
		PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre	116	646
1b	IMP C M PI AVVONIVS VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right (bust of Victorinus)	FIDES MILITVM Fides standing lft, holding a standard in each hand	108	648
		PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre	116	646
2a	IMP C PIAV VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right,	FIDES MILITVM Fides standing lft, holding a standard in each hand	109	654
		INVICTVS Sol walking left, raising right hand, holding whip in left	115	652
		PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre	117	649
2b		INVICTVS Sol walking left, raising right hand, holding whip in left * |	113	653
		PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre V | *	117	651
3a	IMP CAES VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right,	INVICTVS Sol walking left, raising right hand, holding whip in left * |	-	676
		PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre V | *	-	675
4a	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right,	INVICTVS Sol walking left, raising right hand, holding whip in left * |	114	683
	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate head right, with traces if drapery	PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre V | * (with or without a small branch below the star)	-	-
	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right,		118	682
4b	IMP C VICTORINVS•P•F•AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right	INVICTVS Sol walking left, raising right hand, holding whip in left * |	-	683
		PAX AVG Pax standing left, holding an olive branch and a transverse sceptre V | *	-	682
6	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right,	VICTORIA AVG Victory running right, holing wreath and palm frond	-	698
		VIRTVS AVG Virtus standing right holding a spear, right hand resting on a shield AVG	78	699
5a	IMP C VICTORINVS P F AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right,	SALVS AVG Salus Standing facing right, feeding a serpent held in her right hand	67	699
		VIRTVS AVG Virtus standing left holding a sceptre, right hand resting on a shield	-	699
5b	IMP C VICTORINVS•P•F•AVG Radiate draped and cuirassed bust right	SALVS AVG Salus Standing facing right, feeding a serpent held in her right hand	-	-
		VIRTVS AVG Virtus standing left holding a sceptre, right hand resting on a shield	-	-

Victorinus aurei
Cologne mint
Trier mint
Gold quinarius

Domitianus

Both known coins of Domitianus, that discovered a century ago at Cléons, France, and the more recent one from the Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, hoard, are from the same pair of dies and were most probably minted at Cologne. The rarity of his coins suggest that he may have been the emperor who reigned for only three days, not Marius. If Domitian had a hand in the murder of Victorinus and, as appears to be the case, there was a gap between the death of Victorinus and the accession of Tetricus, the army may have stayed loyal to their former commander and speedily disposed of Domitianus without waiting for a “legitimate” successor.

Cologne Mint
Issue	Obverse	Reverse	RIC V	Elmer
1	IMP C DOMITIANVS P F AVG Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right	CONCORDIA MILITVM Concordia standing left, holding a patera and a cornucopiae	1 (see p.590)	-

Note: The illustration of a cast of the Cléons coin in RIC V, plate XX, 12,
has been “doctored” to remove a jagged edge at approximately 7 o’clock on the obverse.