Æ In the name of Valentinian I

Struck by Germanic groups operating just beyond or newly settled within Roman frontier zones, these imitative bronzes were produced without any imperial sanction — the name of Valentinian I borrowed not as loyalty but as a legitimizing fiction. The practice reflects how deeply Roman monetary forms had penetrated barbarian economies by the late fourth century, to the point where the coinage itself was understood as a category of authority worth copying, even if the issuer had no connection to Ravenna or Constantinople.

The "cf." notation against RIC X 3 signals that this piece diverges enough from the catalogued type to resist clean attribution — likely a die-cutter working from a worn prototype rather than a fresh official issue.