In AD 286, the emperor Maximian learned that the commander of his Channel fleet, a Menapian officer named Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius, was partnering with pirates to build up his resources. He had been commissioned to clear the Channel of Saxon and Frankish raiders; according to Eutropius 9.22.

Over the last decade or so my collection has been growing from an interest in the late Roman Republican period - with Sulla and the events of the 80s BC as the seed for the collection. A portrait coin of Mithridates has been on my list for most of that time - and I haven't been willing to commit to the price for a tetradrachm of Mithridates VI. Today's coin fills that gap.

Coma Berenices is one of the 88 IAU constellations . The name means "Berenice's hair" in Latin and refers to Queen Berenice II of Egypt who sacrificed her long hair in the name of love. Today's post, inspired by a coin from Ptolemaic Egypt and the reign of Ptolemy III, takes us to 246 BC. The story starts with Ptolemy III headed off to the Third Syrian War to avenge his sister, Berenice Syra. Kyrenaika, Kyrene. temp. Magas (father of Berenice II). Circa 294-275 BC. AR Did

In the Spring of 251, the mint at Rome struck a sestertius for the young Caesar Hostilian. The reverse shows Apollo seated in calm dignity, lyre at his side, under the legend PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS - a promise of dynastic stability. Within months that promise was broken. Decius and Herennius Etruscus were dead after a battle at Abritus with the Goths. Hostilian too would die soon afterwards, perhaps by plague, perhaps by murder. Modern historians disagree over whether the the Pl