Victorinus archive

Augustus 269-271

Victorinus was a high-ranking commander during the secessionist regime of Postumus. After the brief accessions of Laelianus and Marius he himself was elevated as Augustus by the troops. While Victorinus was initially successful in bringing order after the chaotically implosive reigns of his two predecessors, the separate empire's days were quickly waning. Spain withdrew its recognition of Victorinus and transferred its loyalty back to the forces of Claudius II and Rome. Then Victorinus himself died at the hands of one among his military staff, a certain Attianus, reputedly because he had seduced his wife. The fledgling empire would linger on for three more years under Tetricus and his son before being reabsorbed back into the greater empire.

verall the coins of the Gallic emperors share several loose traits. First of all there is the style that is at once distinctive from the rest of the Roman empire but very similar from ruler to ruler. Then there is the fact that the mints were decentralized and apparently largely unregulated so that the quality of craftsmanship both on the dies used as well as the flans on which they were struck vary from the supremely artistic to the unskilled. In fact, it isn’t often easy to distinguish between official issues and the so-called barbarous imitative coins made by and for Romanized Celts.