Postumus Antoninianus RIC V Postumus 330

Monetary Context

The antoninianus designated as RIC V Postumus 330 belongs to the final monetary phases of the Gallic Empire, an autonomous breakaway state founded by Postumus in 260 AD amidst catastrophic internal civil strife and Germanic incursions across the Rhine frontier. In its opening years, the Gallic administration gained economic prestige by issuing double denarii of noticeably superior weight and silver purity compared to the contemporary, deeply degraded emissions minted at Rome and Milan by Gallienus. This initial monetary advantage served both pragmatic military aims and ideological legitimacy, ensuring that legionaries defending the Rhine limes received coin of reliable purchasing power. By the late 260s AD, however, intense military pressure, regional revolts, and rising administrative costs began to exhaust Gallic bullion reserves. Successive coin reductions occurred across the empire's main mints, lowering both the fineness and physical dimensions of circulating radiates. By the time this issue was struck around 268 or 269 AD, the Gallic billon antoninianus had fallen from an initial silver content exceeding twenty percent down to roughly ten to twelve percent, or even lower in late phases. RIC V Postumus 330 exemplifies this transformative stage: while still struck on competent flans with refined portraiture, the coin formed part of an expanding mass of billon intended to sustain soldiers and civic administration against looming collapse.

Production and Mints

The mint organization responsible for Gallic imperial coinage has been the subject of extensive revision since the early twentieth century. Percy H. Webb originally attributed RIC V Postumus 330 to the primary mint at Cologne, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, which served as a paramount capital and administrative center for Postumus throughout much of his reign. In 1941, Georg Elmer revised the sequence of Gallic emissions and identified two primary striking establishments, Mint I and Mint II, assigning the late radiate sequence containing the Uberitas reverse to Cologne or Trier depending on die links and administrative moves. More recent scholarship, notably syntheses by Jerome Mairat and the study of the Cunetio and Normanby coin hoards, suggests that the primary Gallic mint was relocated from Cologne to Trier (Augusta Treverorum) around 267 or 268 AD, making Trier the probable manufacturing site for this late series. The coins were produced by hot-striking billon flans cast in open molds or prepared from chopped cast rods. The quality of die engraving remained remarkably high, reflecting skilled artisans who preserved classical imperial portrait standards despite the challenging metallurgical medium and the rapid pace of late-reign production.

Obverse Characteristics

The obverse of RIC V Postumus 330 presents an imposing portrait of Postumus facing right, wearing the radiate solar crown that had been the distinctive denomination indicator of the antoninianus since its introduction under Caracalla in 215 AD. Two attested bust varieties exist within the type: a bust that is radiate and draped, and a bust that is radiate, draped, and cuirassed. The portrait style is characterized by the Gallic emperor's distinctively mature features, including a heavy brow, strong jawline, and meticulously detailed, curled hair and beard rendered in the classical Antonine aesthetic favored by Postumus to project stability, maturity, and traditional Roman virtus. Die cutters executed these portraits with relief and precision that stood in sharp contrast to the increasingly hurried, schematic profiles produced in Mediterranean mints during the same decade.

Reverse Iconography

The reverse design displays a draped female personification standing facing left, holding an attribute identified as a money purse or marsupium in her right hand and supporting a cornucopiae laden with fruits in her left arm. In earlier numismatic literature, including Webb's initial RIC entry, this figure was occasionally indexed under the guise of Fertilitas or conflated with Securitas or Abundantia. However, numismatic consensus clarifies that the personification represents Uberitas, the personification of commercial richness, prosperity, and bounty. In earlier Roman numismatics, the purse held by Uberitas was sometimes described by antiquarians as a cluster of grapes, an udder, or a pouch; modern iconographical analysis confirms that the object represents a purse filled with coins, symbolizing monetary plenitude. Supported by the horn of plenty, the design visually asserted that under Postumus, the Gallic territory enjoyed continuous material wealth, agrarian fruitfulness, and prompt imperial disbursements, countering the stark reality of wartime deprivations.

Inscriptions and Epigraphy

The obverse inscription reads IMP C POSTVMVS P F AVG, an abbreviated rendering of Imperator Caesar Postumus Pius Felix Augustus. This standard imperial titulature reinforced Postumus's claim to fully legitimate constitutional authority as Roman emperor, explicitly declining regional or defensive qualifiers. The reverse legend appears in two orthographic forms: VBERITAS AVG or the shortened variant VBERTAS AVG, translating to 'The Abundance of the Augustus' or 'The Fertility of the Augustus'. The epigraphy is executed in clean, well-formed Latin capitals with balanced spacing along the beaded border. The alternate spelling without the second 'i' reflects a common phonological and orthographical development in third-century Latin epigraphy, where syncopation between vowels occurred frequently on coin dies. Neither mintmarks nor officina letters appear in the exergue or field of RIC V Postumus 330, as field markings only became standardized in Gallic issues during later reigns.

Typology and Chronology

In the original organization of Roman Imperial Coinage Volume V Part II, Webb catalogued the Uberitas type under number 330, placing it broadly across the entirety of Postumus's reign between 260 and 269 AD without subdivision into tight chronological emissions. Subsequent hoard analyses and die studies have substantially refined this chronology. Georg Elmer placed the VBERTAS AVG and VBERITAS AVG issues into his fifth and sixth chronological groupings, dating their introduction to the end of Postumus's reign, around 268 AD. In Jerome Mairat's comprehensive 2014 revision of Gallic imperial coinage, the type is situated squarely in the terminal phase of the reign, assigned to Issue 6 (circa late 268 to early 269 AD). Typologically, the type is closely linked to other late reverse themes emphasizing divine favor, imperial restoration, and economic endurance, such as issues dedicated to Fides Militum, Pax Augusta, and Moneta Augusta.

Circulation and Hoard Evidence

RIC V Postumus 330 circulated widely across the northwest provinces of the Roman Empire, including Gaul, Roman Britain, the Rhineland, and Raetia. Massive buried deposits from the late third century provide clear documentation of its distribution and survival patterns. In the British Cunetio hoard, which contained more than fifty thousand radiates buried around 274 AD, specimens of Postumus 330 were present in consistent numbers among the late issues of Postumus, alongside later Gallic issues of Victorinus and the Tetrici. Similar patterns have been documented in the Normanby hoard, the Saint-Mard hoard in Belgium, and numerous coin finds throughout northern France and western Germany. Because these late radiates had a slightly lower intrinsic silver content than Postumus's earlier emissions, they circulated rapidly and were often retained in commercial transactions alongside the vastly debased antoniniani of Claudius Gothicus, Quintillus, and the early Aurelian period, remaining in circulation until the monetary reforms of Diocletian in 294 AD retired the older billon radiates.

References

1. The Cunetio Treasure: Roman Coinage of the Third Century AD. British Museum Publications, London, 1983
2. Die Münzprägung der gallischen Kaiser in Köln, Trier und Mailand. Bonner Jahrbücher 146 (1941), pp. 1-106
3. The Coinage of the Gallic Empire. Doctoral dissertation, University of Oxford, 2014
4. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC V Postumus 330. ric.5.post.330
5. The Roman Imperial Coinage: Volume V, Part II. p. 364, no. 330