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The Reckoning by the Regnal Years and Victories of Valerian and Gallienus1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The statement of L. Wickert that the numbers of the tribuniciae potestates of Gallienus (and of Valerian) are contradictory and also in part evidently wrong can also be applied to the numbering of the consulates of those rulers. There are, however, two kinds of discrepancy in the reckoning of imperial years in this period, caused respectively by ordinary blunders and by abnormal methods of numbering. As the latter kind of discrepancy does not alter the relative exactness of the chronology, abnormal reckoning has, rightly interpreted, the same documentary value as the strictly correct system. Inscriptions, of course, do not offer opportunities of discriminating between occasional mistakes and incorrect systems as the cause of error, but the character of erroneous reckonings can be discerned on coins through continuity of reckoning in successive years in any given mint.
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- Copyright © A. Alföldi 1940. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
2 P-W art. ‘Licinius’, col. 352. A bibliography of the tribunician years in the third century is to be found in Stein's, A. article Laureae Aquincenses i (Diss. Pann. ser. ii, 10), 1938, 256 ff.Google Scholar
3 Cf. Röm. Mitt. l, 1935, 68 ff.Google Scholar
4 The numbers VI and VII on nos. 57–62 do not refer to the tribunician powers; they specify the imperial consulships, as demonstrated by Laffranchi, L., I diversi stili nella monetazione romana, v (offprint from the Riv. Ital. di Num., 1908Google Scholar) and Atti della Pontif. Accad. di Arch. 1921, 418 ff. Cf. also G.-L. Cornaggia, Gli antoniniani del terzo sec. (offprint from the same review, 1918), p. 4, and Alföldi, A., Zeitschr. f. Num. 37, 1927, 201Google Scholar; Num. Közlöny 28–9, 1933, 29Google Scholar, figs. 2–3.
5 Alföldi, A., Berytus 5, 1938, 59 ff.Google Scholar
6 As the type was never struck for Valerian, any confusion with his consulship is excluded.
7 A summary of the facts is given in CAH xii, 1938, 169 ff.Google Scholar
8 Berytus 4, 1937 (1938), 55 ff.Google Scholar, where all details are to be found.
9 Klio 31, 1938, 342Google Scholar.
10 That the mint must be localised at Cologne and not at Lyons will be shown by G. Elmer in a paper which will appear in Banner Jahrbücher 145, 1939Google Scholar.
11 Bolin, S., ‘Die Chronologie der gallischen Kaiser,’ Bull, de la Sac. Royale des Lettres de Lund 5, 1931–1932Google Scholar, tried to solve these chronological problems by a method he had used for coin-hoards. But a theory of probabilities, so suitable and productive for the consideration of hoards, cannot be applied with success to questions of exact chronology.
12 Also by the present writer in Zeitschr. f. Num. 37, 1927, 201Google Scholar, following Voetter.
13 For the plaster-cast cleverly made from the sulphur-cast, I am much indebted to Professor Liegle
14 Webb, P. H., in Mattingly-Sydenham, The Roman Imp. Coinage 5/1, 130Google Scholar, no. 3, not knowing our cast, attributed this medallion to Rome. A simpler form of the reverse occurs on the billon coin of Cologne, Riv. It. di Num. 1, pl. 4, 9.
15 Cf. Num. Chron. 1929, 260 ff. and A. Stein, PIR 2, 1936, 110.
16 Cf. Webb, P. H., in Mattingly-Sydenham, , o.c., 5/2, 1933Google Scholar, nos. 258, 289, 293–6, 334. If the tenth tribunician power points to a date after 10th December, 268, the fifth consulship began only with 1st January, 269.
17 Alföldi, Num. Chron. 1929, 218 ff.
18 Num. Chron. 1936, 99.
19 Trans. Intern. Numis. Congress 1936 (1938), 198 ff.
20 That Alexandrian mint still struck coins for the eighth Egyptian year of Valerian, beginning with 30th August, 260 is to be attributed to an unprecedented constitutional situation caused by the capture of an emperor. Valerian could still be regarded there as sovereign. Cf. my remarks in Berytus 5, 1938, 68 ff.Google Scholar
21 Cf. also L. Laffranchi, o.c., 209.
22 Cf. Num. Chron. 1929, 260 ff.
23 Cf. ibid. 267 ff.
24 It would be very valuable to have a list of the many hundreds of obverses of the first issues of Milan (A.D. 260–1) in their original chronological sequence. We hope that Conte Gianluigi Cornaggia, who has already collected a vast amount of material relating to these coins, will be able to complete this much needed work.
25 On this point Signor Laffranchi agrees with me (o.c., 208).
26 The legionary types are (apart from Northern Italy) very scarce, and that with the loyalty-number VII especially so. If we consider the great variety of the coinage of Quintillus or Florian, we shall understand how it was possible to issue such an extended series in a very short period.
27 Cf. Berytus 5, 1938, 69 f.Google Scholar
28 That only the following issue lasted until the New Year, 262, is shown by the dated variety in Num. Chron. 1929, pl. 18, 13.
29 Worked out in Num. Chron. 1929, 219 ff.
30 Cf. Num. Chron. 1929, pl. 13, 10, 14–15.
31 CAH xii, 1938, 183 ff.Google Scholar
32 Cf. Num. Chron. 1929, 242 ff. and L. Laffranchi, o.c., 205. See also the gold medallion published by E. Breccia, Le musée gréco-romain (d'Alexandrie), 1932, pl. 20, 77.
33 Cf. Num. Chron. 1929, pl. 17, 15, and also pl. 18, 1–2, 7, 12.
34 Cf. CIL ii, 2200; iii, 875.