Domitianus II - Numismatic Evidence

Numismatic Evidence

The only evidence for the existence and rule of an Imperial claimant named Domitianus derives from two coins. The first was part of a hoard discovered at Les Cléons, in the commune of Haute-Goulaine in the Loire area of France in 1900. The authenticity/significance of this particular item was much debated and as late as 1992 Domitianus was widely considered "at best a conjectural figure",. The other coin was found fused in a pot with some 5,000 other coins of the period 250-275 — thus providing incontrovertible provenance — in the village of Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, England, in 2003. The hoard was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum in 2004.

The design of both coins is typical of those associated with the ‘Gallic Empire’. They are of the "radiate" type and depict Domitianus as a bearded figure wearing a spiky or radiate crown representing the rays of the sun, in reference to Sol Invictus (i.e. the sun perceived as a deity lit. - ‘the Unconquered Sun’). The representation is not realistic, but standardized and stereotypical and is very similar to that of the later coins of the "Gallic Emperor" Victorinus (269-271 AD) and the earliest of Tetricus I, the last "Gallic Emperor" (271-274).

Both coins bear the same legend, i.e., an abbreviation for "Imperator Caesar Domitianus Pius Felix Augustus". An unusual feature here is the absence of any reference to Domitianus’s "Nomen" or "Praenomen". "Gallic Empire" coins usually bear the full tria nomina of the prince celebrated the better to carry out their propagandist function. On the reverse, the coins show Concordia, and have the legend, a propagandistic claim that the army was united behind Domitianus. Again this is a standard slogan for the "Gallic emperors."

The design of the Chalgrove coin and its Les Cléons counterpart is typical of others struck under the "Gallic Empire." This suggests that it was struck by the mint (or mints) which serviced that regime – i.e. at Trier in the province of ‘’Gallia Belgica’’ or Cologne in ‘’Germania Inferior’’ or, at least, from a die produced by artisans who were strongly influenced the design-ethos of those mints. It also suggests that the date of the coin was prior to 274 when the Emperor Aurelian suppressed the Gallic regime.