Majorian, 457-461. Tessera Monumentorum (Bronze with raised Silver band, 18x14 mm, 4.20 g, 6 h), Maurusius (?), praefectus urbi or praefectus praetorio. D N IVLI VAL/ERI MAIORIA/NI P P SEMP AVG in three lines inscribed on silver band. Rev. Monogram of M, A, V, R and S on square silver inlay. Apparently unpublished and unique. A beautifully preserved, very unusual and highly important new addition to the series. About extremely fine.


This exceptional piece is only the third recorded tessera monumentorum to bear the name of Majorian, arguably the most capable of the late Western Roman emperors. The first example (Venice) was published in 1859 and has been lost ever since (Kulikowski, Prefects, A2); the second was sold by us last year (Leu 17, 31 May 2025, 512). Both pieces name the praetorian prefect Flavius Caecina Decius Basilius. Since Majorian reigned from 457 to 461, and Basilius is securely attested in office in 458 (and again in 463-465), the overlap strongly favours a date in 458.

The reverse of the present piece, by contrast, bears only a simple monogram, which we tentatively read as M, A, V, R, and S. This could be expanded as Marius, Maurus, or Maurusius. The last possibility is particularly intriguing, since Sidonius Apollinaris mentions a Maurusius, whom he calls an amicus ('friend') (Epist. 2.14). In this letter generally dated to 461-467, Sidonius asks after Maurusius’ wine harvest at his villa near Vialoscum - an almost startling vignette: with the Western Roman Empire on fire, two senators could still trade notes on country pleasures and the quality of the vintage. For the wealthy and well-connected, life still went on. Sidonius himself went on to reach the summit of his political career as praefectus urbi in 468, and the tone of the correspondence - its shared assumptions of status and its easy talk of villas and harvests - strongly suggests that his Maurusius, too, moved in the senatorial milieu. On chronological grounds, it is at least conceivable that he may have held high office under Majorian, in which case the monogram on our tessera might be his.

That said, the reading of the monogram is uncertain, and our prosopographical coverage of Rome’s elite under Majorian remains fragmentary; any identification with Sidonius’ Maurusius must therefore remain a suggestion rather than a secure attribution. Under Majorian, only the praefectus urbi Aemilianus and the praefectus praetorio Flavius Caecina Decius Basilius are securely attested by name, and the monogram on our tessera matches neither. What seems very likely then is that the present piece points to an otherwise unrecorded urban or praetorian prefect, whose name may be expanded as Marius, Maurus, or Maurusius.