Rome / 254
Antoninianus (Coin) Portraying Mariniana
This billon antoninianus presents Mariniana in profile and a flying peacock on its reverse. The inscriptions call her divine and frame the coin around consecration after death.
A small coin made remembrance public and portable. Portrait, bird, and inscription turned an uncertain imperial biography into an official image of elevation.
A CLOSER LOOK
The Art Institute dates the coin to 254 and identifies Mariniana as the probable wife of Emperor Valerian and mother of Emperor Gallienus. The cautious “believed to be” matters because the museum record does not treat those family relationships as fully settled.
Mariniana faces right on the obverse beside the inscription DIVAE MARINIANAE. The reverse bears CONSECRATIO and shows a peacock in flight. Together, the two faces present her posthumous divine status through a named portrait and an image of ascent.
The coin is billon, a silver-bearing alloy, and measures 2.1 centimetres across. Its compact surface required the portrait, Latin text, and bird to remain legible at the scale of an object meant to circulate by hand.
Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze gave the coin to the Art Institute in 1923. The museum records no archaeological findspot or earlier ownership, so this individual object cannot establish where it circulated in antiquity. Its public-domain image supports close viewing while leaving metal color, weight, and surface texture imperfectly conveyed.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
Art Institute of ChicagoAntoninianus (Coin) Portraying MarinianaArt Institute of ChicagoArtworks API record for the Mariniana antoninianusOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.