255AD VALERIAN I Certified Ancient Silver Roman Coin

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Item: i11374 Certified Authentic Ancient Coin of: Valerian I - Roman Emperor: 253-260 A.D. - Silver Antoninianus 21mm (2.10 grams) Rome mint: 255-257 A.D. Reference: RIC 50b IMPCPLICVALERIANVSPFAVG - Radiate, draped bust right. RESTITVTORORBIS - Valerian standing left, holding hand of kneeling Orbis and scepter. You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity. Publius Licinius Valerianus (c. 200 - after 260), commonly known in English as Valerian or Valerian I , was the Roman Emperor from 253 to 260. Origins and rise to power Unlike the majority of the pretenders during the Crisis of the Third Centuryy , Valerian was of a noble and traditional senatorial family. Details of his early life are elusive, but for his marriage to Egnatia Mariniana , who gave him two sons: later emperor Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus and Valerianus Minor .In 238 he was princeps senatus , and Gordian I negotiated through him for Senatorial acknowledgement for his claim as emperor. In 251, when Decius revived the censorship with legislative and executive powers so extensive that it practically embraced the civil authority of the emperor, Valerian was chosen censor by the Senate, though he declined to accept the post. Under Decius he was nominated governor of the Rhine provinces of Noricum and Raetia and retained the confidence of his successor, Trebonianus Gallus , who asked him for reinforcements to quell the rebellion of Aemilianus Rule and fall Valerian's first act as emperor was to make his son Gallienus his colleague. In the beginning of his reign the affairs in Europe went from bad to worse and the whole West fell into disorder. In the East, Antioch had fallen into the hands of a Sassanid vassal, Armenia was occupied by Shapur I (Sapor). Valerian and Gallienus split the problems of the empire between the two, with the son taking the West and the father heading East to face the Persian threat.By 257, Valerian had already recovered Antioch and returned the province of Syria to Roman control but in the following year, the Goths ravaged Asia Minor . Later in 259, he moved to Edessa , but an outbreak of plague killed a critical number of legionaries , weakening the Roman position in Edessa which was then besieged by the Persians. At the beginning of 260, Valerian was defeated in the Battle of Edessa and he arranged a meeting with Shapur to negotiate a peace settlement. The ceasefire was betrayed by Shapur who seized him and held him prisoner for the remainder of his life. Valerian's capture was a humiliating defeat for the Romans. Gibbon , in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire describes Valerian's fate:The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the rights of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but invested with the Imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude, a constant spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome, and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass and marble so often erected by Roman vanity. The tale is moral and pathetic, but the truth of it may very fairly be called in question. The letters still extant from the princes of the East to Sapor are manifest forgeries; nor is... read more

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