Galliena

We are told by Trebellius Pollio that Celsus [Celsus], one of the numerous pretenders to the purple who sprung up during the reign of Gallienus, was invested with the imperial dignity by Gailiena, a cousin (consobrina) of the reigning monarch. A coin described in a MS. of Goltzius, as bearing the inscription Licin. GALLIENA AUG., and supposed by some to belong to the subject of this article, is considered by the best judges to have been spurious, if it ever existed at all.

But two gold medals, which are admitted to be genuine, have proved a source of extreme embarrassment to numismatologists. One of these presents on the obverse a head, apparently that of Gallienus, encircled with a wreath of corn eais, and the legend GALLIENAE AUGUSTAE; on the reverse Victory in a biga, with the words UBIQUE PAX. The other exhibits precisely the same obverse with the former, on the reverse the emperor, clad in military robes, crowned hy Victory, who stands behind, with the words VICTORIA AUG. Of the numerous hypotheses which have been proposed to explain the origin of these pieces, two only are deserving of notice.

1. That of Vaillant, who supposes that they were minted in some of the rebellious provinces, for the purpose of holding up to scorn the effeminacy of Gallienus, whose brows are therefore ornamented with the garland appropriated to females instead of the warrior's laurel.

2. That of Eckhel, who thinks it possible that they may be intended to commemorate some wild freak of Gallienus, who may have thought fit to assume the attributes of the goddess Ceres, just as Nero and Commodus chose to be represented as divinities, the former as Apollo, the latter as Hercules. (Eckhel, vol. vii. p. 411.) [W.R]