Herennia Etruscilla, Augusta, 249-251. Antoninianus (Silver, 21 mm, 2.75 g, 1 h), Rome, 250-251. HER ETRVSCILLA AVG Diademed and draped bust of Herennia Etruscilla set to right on crescent. Rev. PVDICITIA AVG Pudicitia seated left, raising veil with her right hand and holding long scepter in her left. Cohen 19. RIC 59b. A highly interesting overstrike. Harshly cleaned and with traces of overstriking, otherwise, good very fine.



What makes this coin especially compelling is its undertype: it was struck over a denarius of Elagabalus with a Fides reverse (RIC 71). Large parts of the earlier legends still show through - on the obverse from roughly 3 to 9 o’clock ([...]S M AVR ANTONINVS AVG), and on the reverse from about 5 to 9 o’clock ([...]DES EXERCI[...]).

For the Roman treasury, overstriking an antoninianus on an older denarius was an obvious win: the same quantity of silver-bearing coin could be turned into two pieces of currency. Measures of this kind - along with broader debasement - fed the inflationary spiral of the third century and hastened the breakdown of the old system built around the aureus and the denarius. In that sense, our coin is a genuinely important document of Roman monetary history. A more durable stabilization came only later, when Constantine the Great introduced a new gold standard in the form of the solidus.