International Coins

Honorius was the son of Theodosius the Great, the last emperor to rule over both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. His reign was supported by his principal general, Stilicho, who was successively Honorius's guardian (during his childhood) and his...

Herennia Etruscilla was an Augusta and later regent of the Roman Empire, married to the emperor Trajan Decius, mother of Herennius Etruscus and Hostilian. As with most third-century Roman empresses, very little is known about her. She was probably from...

Herod I is one of the Bible s most complex figures. A brilliant politician and the greatest builder in Jewish history, he was also a paranoid madman who ruthlessly executed anyone he deemed a threat to his absolute power, whether legitimate rivals,...

Helena was the consort to Constantius Chlorus and the mother of Constantine the Great. By 324, Constantine alone ruled the length and breadth of the Empire. Two years later, he dispatched Helena to the Holy Land, to search among the runs for relics. She...

This remarkable coin is the first to feature the Hand without also depicting the beneficiary of the blessing. In its earlier forms, the Manus Dei indicated Gods blessing, appearing above a devotional figure, usually a king. For example, on a...

Born in Spain in 76 CE, Hadrian ascended to the throne upon the death of his adoptive father Trajan. In Rome, he re-built the famed Pantheon, with its distinctively Hellenistic look, and in Britain, the remains of Hadrian s Wall are still a tourist attrac

Gordian III assumed the throne in 238, at the ripe old age of 13. The youthful, good-natured Gordian managed to survive for six years, among the longest reigns of any emperor during the Age of Chaos, before being killed.

Geta was the youngest son of Septimius Severus and the brother of Caracalla, he ruled as co-emperor with them from 209 CE. Severus intended for his sons to rule together, however on his death in 211 CE, Geta and his supporters were murdered on the orders...

While this hard-nosed emperor believed sincerely that he was a demigod come down to earth, Gallienus still managed to implement important reforms in the military. His decision to bar senators from serving as military commanders allowed more equestrians to

In the spring of A.D. 260, the Roman Emperor Valerian was taken prisoner by the Persian King of Kings. This humiliating capture, unprecedented in the long annals of Rome, ended Valerian s reign, leaving his overmatched son Gallienus on the throne, and a...

A soldier during the reigns of Aurelian and Probus, Galerius was named Caesar in 293 and Augustus 12 years later, during the Tetrarchy period, when the Empire was divided into smaller units for ease of administration.

Faustina the Elder was of noble blood; Trajan was her great-great-great uncle. Her marriage to Antoninus Pius helped legitimize his claim to the throne one of many examples of Rome s matrilineal lines of succession. Their marriage was a happy one,...

Faustina the Younger was a daughter of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius and Roman Empress Faustina the Elder. She was a Roman Empress and wife to her maternal cousin Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. She was held in high esteem by soldiers and her own...

Fausta was the second wife of Constantine I.

The lost wonder of the ancient world, the famed Hanging Gardens, were not located at Babylon, as originally thought, but at Susa, in the Biblical realm of Elam or so some numismatists now believe. The answer to the riddle lies in the strange markings on...

Russian Empire, Elizabeth (1741-1762), 5 Kopek, medium grade Slabs.

Typical Mexico real fragment recovered from the 1784 wreck of the El Cazador. The Legendary Shipwreck of El Cazador (1784)In the late 18th century, Spains economy was in crisisespecially in colonial Louisiana, where worthless paper money had replaced...

Typical Mexico 2 real fragment recovered from the 1784 wreck of the El Cazador. The Legendary Shipwreck of El Cazador (1784) In the late 18th century, Spains economy was in crisisespecially in colonial Louisiana, where worthless paper money had replaced...

Assuming the throne at the tender age of 14, after a palace coup, Elagabalus was anything but the innocent child. Uninterested in the military or affairs of state, the young emperor made use of his imperial godhead to, as Edward Gibbon put it, abandon...

This coin was on the bottom of the English Channel for almost 200 years. It was part of the cargo of the Admiral Gardner, an East India Company ship bound for Madras that sunk during a storm in 1809.

Domitian was the younger brother of Titus and son of Vespasian, and the last member of the Flavian dynasty. As emperor, Domitian strengthened the economy by revaluing the Roman coinage, expanded the border defenses of the empire, and initiated a massive...

Diocletian assumed command in 284, closing the book on five decades of near-anarchy. He ruled with an iron fist, stamping out Christians where he could. He is best remembered today for his Palace, an architectural model for the Adam houses of the late...

Diocletian assumed command in 284, closing the book on five decades of near-anarchy. He ruled with an iron fist, stamping out Christians where he could. He is best remembered today for his Palace, an architectural model for the Adam houses of the late...

Magnus Decentius was a usurper during the reign of Constantius II.

On January 6, 1198, Levon the Magnificent was crowned king, establishing the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Levon, known in the West as Leo, was a major figure in the Third Crusade, and Little Armenia continued to be a Christian bulwark against Islamic...

Unlike his younger half-brothers, Constantine s eldest son Crispus was not born in the purple that is, his father was not emperor when he was born so he was not a spoiled child. Indeed, his upbringing was similar to Constantine s own. Thus it is no...

Unlike his younger half-brothers, Constantine s eldest son Crispus was not born in the purple that is, his father was not emperor when he was born so he was not a spoiled child. Indeed, his upbringing was similar to Constantine s own. Thus it is no...

Constantine the Great was the first Christian Emperor of Rome, the founder of the great city of Constantinople, and arguably the most historically significant Roman ruler of the Common Era. He legalized Christianity in the Empire, and worked with the...

In the year 330, Constantine the Great-established a city on the Bosporus, what had been a sleepy town called Byzantium. He christened the new city, New Rome, but it came to be known as the City of Constantine Constantinople. Constantinopolis, as it was...

Constantius II, Fausta s middle son, was the most ruthlessly efficient of the sons of Constantine. He was elevated to Caesar at age seven, and in 333 was given the city of Antioch.

When the deathly ill emperor Diocletian abdicated in 305, he divided the unwieldy Empire into two sections, each with its own Augustus and its own Caesartwo men in the East, two men in the West. This new arrangement was called the Tetrarchy. As the...

When the deathly ill emperor Diocletian abdicated in 305, he divided the unwieldy Empire into two sections, each with its own Augustus and its own Caesar two men in the East, two men in the West. This new arrangement was called the Tetrarchy. As the...

When the deathly ill emperor Diocletian abdicated in 305, he divided the unwieldy Empire into two sections, each with its own Augustus and its own Caesar two men in the East, two men in the West. This new arrangement was called the Tetrarchy. As the...

Constantine II was the first son of Constantine the Great and his second wife, Fausta. He was born in the purple that is, his father was Augustus when he came into the world and he grew up a spoiled, entitled child.

Constantine II was the first son of Constantine the Great and his second wife, Fausta. He was born in the purple that is, his father was Augustus when he came into the world and he grew up a spoiled, entitled child.

Constantine the Great was the first Christian Emporer of Rome. It was Constantine who made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire, elevating what had been a fringe religious sect into a position of prominence it would enjoy for 20...

Constantine the Great was the first Christian Emperor of Rome, the founder of the great city of Constantinople, and arguably the most historically significant Roman ruler of the Common Era. This coins reverse features Jupiter and the phrase Jovi...

When we think of ancient Rome, we think first of the gladiators. These professional fighters delighted frenzied crowds in the Colosseum, doing battle with wild animals, with condemned criminals, and with one another, sometimes fighting to the death. The...

The son of the enlightened Marcus Aurelius, Commodus had more in common with the emperor Caligula. Believing himself a genuine deity, he filled Rome with statues of himself in godly poses, and altered the names of the twelve months to correspond with his...

Clodius Albinus was just one pretender to the throne in the aptly named year of the five emperors (193 AD). He had somewhat more success than the other claimants, by allying himself with Septimius Severus and the Roman Senate. However, Severus turned on...