Svante Fischer: The Rome Solidus Mint of Valentinian III (425-455)

Research Seminar

7 April 2022, 17.00, at the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome and on Zoom

Svante Fischer

The Rome Solidus Mint of Valentinian III (425-455)

This paper seeks to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the reign of the western emperor Valentinian III (425455) by analyzing numismatic evidence from Scandinavia and Italy. The paper examines the relationship between the northern periphery of Barbaricum and the epicenter of the western half of the Late Roman empire during the reign of one of the last legitimate Roman emperors. The research method employed in this paper consists of a comparison of the obverse and reverse dies of solidi issued in Italy under Valentinian III from the mints of Milan, Ravenna and Rome. The method is based on the assumption that coins from recorded finds provide more important information than decontextualized finds in museums and auction catalogues. Some 100 solidi in the studied material come from preserved Scandinavian solidus hoards. These have been matched against recorded solidi from the major preserved hoards in Italy. The Rome mint seems to be the point of origin of the solidus types issued in c. 450–455 that connect Italy and Öland.

Svante Fischer is associate professor (docent) of Archaeology at Uppsala University since 2013. His previous work experience includes fellowships at the College de France in Paris, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Nantes, and the Musée d’Archéologie Nationale in St Germain-en-Laye. His current main research project is a future monograph on the Late Roman and Early Byzantine solidi of Scandinavia, to be published in collaboration with the Numismatic Research Group at Stockholm University.

Preregister for limited places by sending an email to oen@isvroma.org (FFP2 mask and Green Pass required). If you want to follow the seminar via zoom please register here!