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Aureus - Diocletianus IOVI CONSERVATORI, Jupiter
| Issuer | Roman Empire (27 BC - 395 AD) |
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| Year | 284-294 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Obverse description | Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust of Diocletian facing right, rendered in high relief with finely detailed hair, short beard, and laurel wreath tied with ribbons falling behind the neck. The emperor's paludamentum is fastened at the right shoulder, and the cuirass is visible beneath. The encircling Latin legend reads IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIANVS AVG, framed by a beaded border. The portrait exhibits the robust, authoritative style characteristic of Tetrarchic imperial coinage, emphasizing martial strength and imperial dignity. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Diocletian struck this issue early in his reign, before the monetary reforms of 294 AD fundamentally restructured Roman coinage. The association with Jupiter as protector was not decorative politics — Diocletian formally styled himself Jovius, binding his imperial authority to Jupiter's divine sanction, while his co-emperor Maximian took the epithet Herculius. This theological division of the imperial college was a deliberate constitutional statement, the first systematic attempt to give the tetrarchic arrangement a cosmological framework.
The 294 reform replaced the aureus with the lighter scripulum standard, making pre-reform aurei like this one a short-lived issue by any measure.