166, Lot: 181. Estimate $500. Sold for $540. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Marius. Romano-Gallic Emperor, AD 269. Antoninianus (20mm, 2.85 g). Mint I (Trier). 2nd emission. Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Felicitas standing left, holding caduceus and cornucopia. RIC V 10; Mairat 235; AGK 4b. Good VF, dark brown surfaces, small flaw on neck, boldly struck. The mark on the neck is the incuse impression of edge beading; apparently a fragment broke off the edge of a previous coin and was struck into this one.

Marcus Aurelius Marius would have been voted “Least Likely to Become Emperor”. According to the historian Aurelius Victor he was a simple soldier, formerly a blacksmith, in the army of Postumus when that Gallic emperor was murdered by his own men when he refused them the sack of Moguntiacum (Mainz) after the fall of the usurper Laelianus. Somehow, in a manner the historians are silent about, Marius was selected as the new emperor. The traditional account goes on to say that Marius himself reigned for only three days, to be slain by a sword of his own manufacture, and succeeded by Tetricus I. Marius’ coinage seems to belie that tale, being scarce but not unobtainable, and remarkably well made for the period. It is always problematic to judge character by physiognomy, but Marius comes across in his coin portraits as a bluff but well-meaning soldier. He must have had positive qualities that have not come down to us in the surviving histories.