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This medium-sized bronze coin (AE2 size designation) was issued in honor of Aelia Flacilla, wife of Emperor Theodosius I and the first empress of the Theodosian dynasty. As imperial consort, her image on coinage helped legitimize the new dynasty and promote Christian imperial values.
Coin Description:
Front side: Portrait of Empress Aelia Flacilla wearing an elaborate headdress and imperial regalia, with her name and title "AELIA FLACILLA AUGUSTA" around the edge
Back side: Likely depicts either the empress in an attitude of prayer, a personification of Christian virtue, or Victory inscribing a shield
Technical Details:
Bronze composition (copper alloy)
AE2 denomination (medium-sized bronze coin)
NGC certified (Numismatic Guaranty Corporation)
Minted between approximately 379-386 CE in various imperial mints
Condition: Certified by NGC, specific grade not provided
Historical Significance: This coin represents the growing importance of imperial women and Christianity in late Roman imperial ideology. Aelia Flacilla was celebrated for her piety and charitable works, embodying the new Christian imperial ideal that Theodosius promoted throughout the empire. As mother of future emperors Arcadius and Honorius, she also represented dynastic continuity during a time when Theodosius was working to consolidate power after years of political instability.
This medium-sized bronze coin (AE2 size designation) was issued in honor of Aelia Flacilla, wife of Emperor Theodosius I and the first empress of the Theodosian dynasty. As imperial consort, her image on coinage helped legitimize the new dynasty and promote Christian imperial values.
Coin Description:
Front side: Portrait of Empress Aelia Flacilla wearing an elaborate headdress and imperial regalia, with her name and title "AELIA FLACILLA AUGUSTA" around the edge
Back side: Likely depicts either the empress in an attitude of prayer, a personification of Christian virtue, or Victory inscribing a shield
Technical Details:
Bronze composition (copper alloy)
AE2 denomination (medium-sized bronze coin)
NGC certified (Numismatic Guaranty Corporation)
Minted between approximately 379-386 CE in various imperial mints
Condition: Certified by NGC, specific grade not provided
Historical Significance: This coin represents the growing importance of imperial women and Christianity in late Roman imperial ideology. Aelia Flacilla was celebrated for her piety and charitable works, embodying the new Christian imperial ideal that Theodosius promoted throughout the empire. As mother of future emperors Arcadius and Honorius, she also represented dynastic continuity during a time when Theodosius was working to consolidate power after years of political instability.
This medium-sized bronze coin (AE2 size designation) was issued in honor of Aelia Flacilla, wife of Emperor Theodosius I and the first empress of the Theodosian dynasty. As imperial consort, her image on coinage helped legitimize the new dynasty and promote Christian imperial values.
Coin Description:
Front side: Portrait of Empress Aelia Flacilla wearing an elaborate headdress and imperial regalia, with her name and title "AELIA FLACILLA AUGUSTA" around the edge
Back side: Likely depicts either the empress in an attitude of prayer, a personification of Christian virtue, or Victory inscribing a shield
Technical Details:
Bronze composition (copper alloy)
AE2 denomination (medium-sized bronze coin)
NGC certified (Numismatic Guaranty Corporation)
Minted between approximately 379-386 CE in various imperial mints
Condition: Certified by NGC, specific grade not provided
Historical Significance: This coin represents the growing importance of imperial women and Christianity in late Roman imperial ideology. Aelia Flacilla was celebrated for her piety and charitable works, embodying the new Christian imperial ideal that Theodosius promoted throughout the empire. As mother of future emperors Arcadius and Honorius, she also represented dynastic continuity during a time when Theodosius was working to consolidate power after years of political instability.
Aelia Flavia Flaccilla (died 386) was a Roman empress and first wife of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. She was of Hispanian Roman descent. During her marriage to Theodosius, she gave birth to two sons – future Emperors Arcadius and Honorius – and a daughter, Aelia Pulcheria.
According to Laus Serenae ("In Praise of Serena"), a poem by Claudian, both Serena and Flaccilla were from Hispania.[1]
A passage of Themistius (Oratio XVI, De Saturnino) has been interpreted to identify Flaccilla's father as Claudius Antonius, Praetorian prefect of Gaul from 376 to 377 and Roman consul in 382. However the relation is considered doubtful.[2] In 1967, John Robert Martindale, later one of several article writers in the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, suggested that the passage actually identifies Antonius as the brother-in-law of Theodosius. However the passage is vague enough to allow Afranius Syagrius, co-consul of Antonius in 382, to be the brother-in-law in question.[3] The only kin clearly identified in primary sources was her nephew Nebridius, son of an unnamed sister.[4]