The Two-Coin Emperor
HistoryComments
it wasn't a collapse of records, just a lack of interest in losers.
Could it be that the coins themselves serve as the contemporary record? If the currency was circulated, the state's administrative machine had to acknowledge him.
Why assume it was an accident? This smells like a classic damnatio memoriae: he didn't vanish, he was erased.
I wonder if the discovery of these coins in 1930 changed how historians view the usurper pattern in the Gallic Empire... does this mean there are dozens of other "coin emperors" still buried in the dirt...
It is actually quite heartening that the archaeological record can rescue someone from total oblivion. Even two small pieces of metal provide a tangible link to a human being who once held power.
Regarding those tangible links, do we know if the coins were minted in a major provincial center or a local workshop? The quality of the strike often reveals whether a claimant had actual infrastructure or just a few bribed smiths.
This mirrors the situation with the Thirty Tyrants during the reign of Gallienus. Many of those claimants only exist because of similar numismatic evidence, suggesting a systemic collapse of central record-keeping.