Salonina – Roman Empress: 253-268 A.D. – Wife of Gallienus Billon Silver Antoninianus 22mm (2.86 grams) Cologne mint 257-258 A.D. Reference: RIC.68 SALONINA AVG, Diademed, draped bust right on crescent VENVS VICTRIX, Venus standing left, holding apple, shield right at feet.
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Venus was a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths. From the third century BC, the increasing Hellenization of Roman upper classes identified her as the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite.
Her cult began in Ardea and Lavinium, Latium. On August 15, 293 BC, her oldest known temple was dedicated, and August 18 became a festival called the Vinalia Rustica. After Rome‘s defeat at the Battle of Lake Trasimene in the opening episodes of the Second Punic War, the Sibylline oracle recommended the importation of the Sicillian Venus of Eryx; a temple to her was dedicated on the Capitoline Hill in 217 BC: a second temple to her was dedicated in 181 BC.
Venus seems to have played a part in household or private religion of some Romans. Julius Caesar claimed her as an ancestor (Venus Genetrix); possibly a long-standing family tradition, certainly one adopted as such by his heir Augustus. Venus statuettes have been found in quite ordinary household shrines (lararia). In fiction, Petronius places one among the Lares of the freedman Trimalchio‘s household shrine.
Julia Cornelia Salonina (d. 268, Mediolanum) was an Augusta, wife of Roman Emperor Gallienus and mother of Valerian II, Saloninus, and Marinianus.
Julia Cornelia Salonina’s origin is unknown. According to a modern theory, she was born of Greek origin in Bithynia, then part of the province of Bithynia et Pontus, Asia Minor. However, there exists some scepticism on that. She was married to Gallienus about ten years before his accession to the throne. When her husband became joint-emperor with his father Valerian in 253, Cornelia Salonina was named Augusta.
Cornelia was the mother of three princes, Valerian II, Saloninus and Marinianus. Her fate, after the murder of Gallienus, during the siege of Mediolanum in 268, is unknown. It is likely that either her life was spared or the she was executed together with other members of her family, at the orders of the Senate of Rome.
Her name is reported on coins with Latin legend as Cornelia Salonina; however, from the Greek coinage come the names Iulia Cornelia Salonina, Publia Licinia Cornelia Salonina, and Salonina Chrysogona (attribute that means “begotten of gold”).
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