Artemide Aste s.r.l.
Auction XLVIII 2 Dec 2017
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Herennia Etruscilla, wife of Trajan Decius (249-251 AD). AR Antoninianus, 250 AD. Obv. HER ETRVSCILLA AVG. Draped bust right, wearing stephane, set on crescent. Rev. PVDICITIA AVG. Pudicitia seated left, drawing veil from face and holding sceptre. RIC (Trajan Dec.) 59b. AR. g. 4.39 mm. 25.00 An outstanding example, struck on exceptionally broad flan. FDC.
Herennia Etruscilla was already the wife of Trajan Decius before he seized the imperial throne in AD 249. Little is known of her life beyond that she bore him two sons, Q. Herennius Decius, who went on to rule alongside his father (AD 250-251), and C. Valens Hostilian, who briefly succeeded them after they were killed in battle against the Visigoths in AD 251. Etruscilla and Hostilian were both carried off by the plague that ravaged Rome later that same year, thereby sparing them the looming civil war with Trebonianus Gallus, whom the army preferred to see as emperor than the heir of Decius. When Gallus reached Rome, the memory of Decius and his entire family, including Herennia Etruscilla, was condemned and their names stricken from monuments. She, her husband, and her sons were avenged two years later, in AD 253, when Gallus was lynched by the soldiery and he too was made to suffer damnatio memoriae.
(N.Y. Sale XL, 1248 note).
Herennia Etruscilla was already the wife of Trajan Decius before he seized the imperial throne in AD 249. Little is known of her life beyond that she bore him two sons, Q. Herennius Decius, who went on to rule alongside his father (AD 250-251), and C. Valens Hostilian, who briefly succeeded them after they were killed in battle against the Visigoths in AD 251. Etruscilla and Hostilian were both carried off by the plague that ravaged Rome later that same year, thereby sparing them the looming civil war with Trebonianus Gallus, whom the army preferred to see as emperor than the heir of Decius. When Gallus reached Rome, the memory of Decius and his entire family, including Herennia Etruscilla, was condemned and their names stricken from monuments. She, her husband, and her sons were avenged two years later, in AD 253, when Gallus was lynched by the soldiery and he too was made to suffer damnatio memoriae.
(N.Y. Sale XL, 1248 note).