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Salonina
– Roman Empress: 253-268 A.D. – Wife of Gallienus
–
Billon Tetradrachm 23mm (9.01 grams) of
Alexandria
in
Egypt
Dated Regnal year 13 of Gallienus, 265/266 A.D.
Reference: Dattari 5328
KOPNHΛIA CAΛWNЄINA CЄB, Draped bust right, wearing
stephane.
Dikaiosyne standing left, holding scales and cornucopia; date L IΓ
in upper left field; palm branch in field to right..
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
In
ancient Greek culture
, Dikē (Greek:
Δίκη,
English translation
: “justice”) was the spirit
of moral order and fair judgement based on immemorial custom, in the sense of
socially enforced
norms
and
conventional rules
. According to
Hesiod
(Theogony,
l. 901), she was fathered by
Zeus upon his second consort,
Themis
.
Depiction
The sculptures of the
Temple of Zeus at Olympia
have as their
unifying iconographical conception the dikē of Zeus,[1]
and in poetry she is often the attendant (paredros) of Zeus. In the
philosophical climate of late 5th century Athens, dikē could be
anthropomorphised
as a goddess of
moral
justice
. She was one of the three
second-generation Horae
, along with
Eunomia
(“order”) and
Eirene
(“peace”):
“Eunomia and that unsullied fountain Dikē, her sister, sure
support of cities; and Eirene of the same kin, who are the stewards
of wealth for mankind — three glorious daughters of wise-counselled Themis.”
She ruled over human justice, while her mother
Themis
ruled over divine justice. Her opposite
was adikia (“injustice”): in reliefs on the archaic
Chest of Cypselus
preserved at Olympia, a
comely Dikē throttled an ugly Adikia and beat her with a stick.
The later art of rhetoric treated the personification of abstract concepts as
an artistic device, which devolved into the
allegorizing
that
Late Antiquity
bequeathed to
patristic literature
. In a further
euhemerist
interpretation, Dikē was born a
mortal and Zeus
placed her on Earth to keep mankind just.
He quickly learned this was impossible and placed her next to him on
Mount Olympus
.
Dike Astraea
One of her epithets was Astraea, referring to her appearance as the
constellation
Virgo
. According to Aratus’ account of the
constellation’s origin, Dike lived upon Earth during the
Golden
and
Silver
ages, when there were no wars or
diseases, men did not yet know how to sail, and men raised fine crops. They grew
greedy, however, and Dike was sickened. She proclaimed:
Behold what manner of race the fathers of the Golden Age left behind
them! Far meaner than themselves! but you will breed a viler progeny! Verily
wars and cruel bloodshed shall be unto men and grievous woe shall be laid
upon them.
—Aratus, Phaenomena 123
Dike left Earth for the sky, from which, as the constellation, she watched
the despicable human race. After her departure, the human race declined into the
Brazen Age, when diseases arose and they learned how to sail.
Alexandria was founded
by
Alexander the Great
in April 331 BC as
Ἀλεξάνδρεια (Alexándreia).
Alexander’s
chief architect
for the project was
Dinocrates
. Alexandria was intended to
supersede Naucratis
as a
Hellenistic
center in Egypt, and to be the link
between Greece and the rich
Nile Valley. An Egyptian city,
Rhakotis
, already existed on the shore, and
later gave its name to Alexandria in the
Egyptian language
(Egyptian *Raˁ-Ḳāṭit,
written rˁ-ḳṭy.t, ‘That which is built up’). It continued to exist as the
Egyptian quarter of the city. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left
Egypt and never returned to his city. After Alexander’s departure, his viceroy,
Cleomenes
, continued the expansion. Following a
struggle with the other successors of Alexander, his general
Ptolemy
succeeded in bringing Alexander’s body
to Alexandria.
Alexandria, sphinx made of
pink granite
,
Ptolemaic
.
Heptastadion and the mainland quarters seem to have been
primarily Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined
Tyre
and becoming the centre of the new
commerce between Europe and the
Arabian
and Indian East, the city grew in less
than a generation to be larger than
Carthage
. In a century, Alexandria had become
the largest city in the world and, for some centuries more, was second only to
Rome. It became Egypt’s main Greek city, with
Greek people
from diverse backgrounds.
Alexandria was not only a centre of
Hellenism
, but was also home to the largest
Jewish community in the world. The
Septuagint
, a Greek translation of the
Hebrew Bible
, was produced there. The early
Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the
leading Hellenistic center of learning (Library
of Alexandria), but were careful to maintain the distinction of its
population’s three largest ethnicities: Greek, Jewish, and
Egyptian
. From this division arose much of the
later turbulence, which began to manifest itself under
Ptolemy Philopater
who reigned from 221–204 BC.
The reign of
Ptolemy VIII Physcon
from 144–116 BC was marked
by purges and civil warfare..
The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 BC, according to the
will of
Ptolemy Alexander
, but only after it had been
under Roman influence for more than a hundred years. It was captured by
Julius Caesar
in 47 BC during a Roman
intervention in the domestic civil war between king
Ptolemy XIII
and his advisers, and the fabled
queen
Cleopatra VII
. It was finally captured by
Octavian
, future
emperor
Augustus on 1 August 30 BC, with the
name of the month later being changed to August to commemorate his
victory.
Kitos War, which gave
Hadrian
and his architect,
Decriannus
, an opportunity to rebuild it. In
215, the
emperor
Caracalla
visited the city and, because of some
insulting satires
that the inhabitants had directed at
him, abruptly commanded his troops to
put to death
all youths capable of bearing
arms. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a
tsunami
(365
Crete earthquake), an event still annually commemorated 17 hundred
years later as a “day of horror.” In the late 4th century, persecution of
pagans
by newly Christian Romans had reached
new levels of intensity. In 391, the Patriarch
Theophilus
destroyed all pagan temples in
Alexandria under orders from Emperor
Theodosius I
. The
Brucheum
and Jewish quarters were desolate in
the 5th century. On the mainland, life seemed to have centred in the vicinity of
the Serapeum and
Caesareum
, both of which became
Christian churches
. The
Pharos
and Heptastadium quarters,
however, remained populous and were left intact.
In 619, Alexandria
fell
to the
Sassanid Persians
. Although the
Byzantine Emperor
Heraclius
recovered it in 629, in 641 the Arabs
under the general
Amr ibn al-As
captured it during the
Muslim conquest of Egypt
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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