Coinage of Valerian and Gallienus
Roman coinage during the reign of emperors Valerian and Gallienus
The coinage of Valerian and Gallienus refers to all the coins issued by Rome during the reigns of Emperors Gallienus (253-268) and Valerian (253-260).
Historical context
The period called military anarchy had begun with the assassination of Severus Alexander (last heir of the Severan dynasty), at the instigation of the military officer Maximinus Thrax, who then succeeded him in 235. Maximinus had then been succeeded by a dozen emperors, until Aemilianus in 253. The latter, however, did not last more than three months, also dying at the hands of his own soldiers near Spoleto. He was succeeded in 253 by Valerian, (captured by the Sasanians in 260), and his son Gallienus until 268.
Valerian (253-260)
Emperor Trebonianus Gallus asked Valerian for help, appointing him governor of Rhaetia, when Aemilianus, proclaimed emperor by the Danubian troops, marched against Italy. Valerian then marched from Rhaetia, taking the Rhenish troops with him, but he was not in time to save Gallus, who was defeated by Aemilianus and killed by his own men; Valerian's troops, however, refused to recognize the victor and hailed their own general as emperor.
In late July/mid-September 253, the armies of Valerian and Aemilianus clashed, but Aemilianus' soldiers decided to abandon him and killed him near Spoleto, at a bridge called the Sanguinarii, between Oricolum and Narnia. At the same time, a new wave of Goths, Borani, Carpi and Heruli had brought destruction as far as Pessinus and Ephesus by sea, and then by land to the territories of Cappadocia.
It was under these circumstances that Valerian was raised to the purple (October 22, 253).
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