Lot 1248
Herennia Etruscilla. Gold Aureus (4.56 g), Augusta, AD 249-251. Rome, under Trajan Decius, AD 250. HER ETRVSCILLA AVG, diademed and draped bust of Herennia Etruscilla right. Rev. PVDICITIA AVG, Pudicitia seated left, drawing veil from face, and holding scepter. (RIC 59a; Calicó 3308). Well struck and well centered with plenty of underlying mint luster present. Minor planchet flaw noted on the obverse. Extremely fine. Estimate $9,000UP
Ex NAC 84 (20 May 2015), 1120.
Herennia Etruscilla was already the wife of Trajan Decius before he seized the imperial throne in AD 249. Little is known of her life beyond that she bore him two sons, Q. Herennius Decius, who went on to rule alongside his father (AD 250-251), and C. Valens Hostilian, who briefly succeeded them after they were killed in battle against the Visigoths in AD 251. Etruscilla and Hostilian were both carried off by the plague that ravaged Rome later that same year, thereby sparing them the looming civil war with Trebonianus Gallus, whom the army preferred to see as emperor than the heir of Decius. When Gallus reached Rome, the memory of Decius and his entire family, including Herennia Etruscilla, was condemned and their names stricken from monuments. She, her husband, and her sons were avenged two years later, in AD 253, when Gallus was lynched by the soldiery and he too was made to suffer damnatio memoriae.
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| Realized $10,030 |
