v16_0659 - AURELIAN Aurelianus

AURELIAN

(07/270-09/275)

Aurelian was born around 207 in Sirmium. After a brilliant military career, he was proclaimed august at Sirmium after the death of Claudius II and remained sole emperor after the suicide of Quintille. He made the painful decision to abandon Dacia in 271 and then attacked Zenobia and Vaballath by seizing Palmyra in 272. Then he undertook the reconquest of the Gallic Empire and defeated Tetricus at Châlons. He triumphs in Rome and saves the life of his famous prisoners. He was assassinated when he was preparing a campaign against the Sassanids in order to reconquer Mesopotamia. With the reform, Aurélien tried to recreate a truly coherent monetary system that had completely disappeared since the end of Gallien's reign. A return to monetary orthodoxy, the victories over Palmyra and the Gallic Empire allowed this monetary restoration which was to survive somehow until the reform of Diocletian in 294. Apparently the denarius, sometimes silver, was worth half the new coin called aurelianus or antoninianus.