1 Aureus - Imitating Marcus Aurelius, 161-180

Germanic imitations of Roman aurei circulated widely beyond the frontier as prestige objects and diplomatic gifts rather than transactional currency. This piece copies types of Marcus Aurelius — an emperor whose coinage remained in active imitation long after his death, partly because his reign coincided with substantial Roman payments to frontier tribes designed to purchase short-term peace. The irony that tribes receiving those payments then reproduced the coins is not lost on specialists.

The Arslan corpus leaves this type unassigned, which itself signals something: these frontier gold pieces resist systematic classification, their die links and tribal attributions still contested.