Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XVIII 29 Sep 2019
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Jovian AV Solidus. Sirmium, AD 363-364. D N IOVIANVS P F AVG, pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right / SECVRITAS REIPVBLICE, Jovian, diademed and in military attire, standing facing with head left, holding labarum in right hand, bound captive to left with head reverted; *SIRM• in exergue. RIC 110; Depeyrot 6/4; Biaggi 2228. 4.43g, 20mm, 7h.
Fleur De Coin. Very Rare.
Ex Bernard Poindessault (1935-2014) legacy;
Privately purchased from Nomisma, Paris.
Emperor for little under eight months, Jovian's influence nonetheless extended centuries beyond his reign. Having accompanied the emperor Julian II on the Mesopotamian campaign against the Sassanid king Shapur II, Jovian had the reins of empire thrust upon him following the death of the mortally wounded Julian in the retreat from the decisive Roman defeat at Samarra. A Christian unlike his predecessor, Jovian ended the brief revival of the traditional Roman state religion and re-established Christianity as the only lawful religion of the empire, prescribing the death penalty for those worshipping ancestral gods. Jovian died having never reached the capital of Constantinople, apparently from "a surfeit of mushrooms and wine" (Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire, XXIV, o. 830, 838, XXV, p. 844), yet in part due to his actions Christianity remained the dominant religion of both Western and Eastern Roman Empires until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Fleur De Coin. Very Rare.
Ex Bernard Poindessault (1935-2014) legacy;
Privately purchased from Nomisma, Paris.
Emperor for little under eight months, Jovian's influence nonetheless extended centuries beyond his reign. Having accompanied the emperor Julian II on the Mesopotamian campaign against the Sassanid king Shapur II, Jovian had the reins of empire thrust upon him following the death of the mortally wounded Julian in the retreat from the decisive Roman defeat at Samarra. A Christian unlike his predecessor, Jovian ended the brief revival of the traditional Roman state religion and re-established Christianity as the only lawful religion of the empire, prescribing the death penalty for those worshipping ancestral gods. Jovian died having never reached the capital of Constantinople, apparently from "a surfeit of mushrooms and wine" (Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire, XXIV, o. 830, 838, XXV, p. 844), yet in part due to his actions Christianity remained the dominant religion of both Western and Eastern Roman Empires until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.