HERCVLI PACIFERO. -- Hercules naked, stands with the face turned to the right, holding up a branch in his left hand, whilst he bears the club and lion 's skin in his right. -- Postumus.
Banduri is of opinion that this rare silver coin is most correctly to be referred to the year A.D. 266, in which Gallienus, despairing of an opportunity to avenge the murder of his son Cornelius Saloninus, left off carrying on the war which up that period had, with mutual loss, been waged in Gaul between him and Postumus, in order that he might, with the universal strength of the empire, resist and repel the Scythian nations, who had for nearly fifteen years been ravaging both the European and the Asiatic provinces; for such was then the condition of the Roman government, that it was unable to sustain against one sufficiently formidable enemy two wars at the same time. But this coin shows that Postumus chose to ascribe the accepted peace to his own valor, rather than to the calamities of the state. There are similar pieces in brass. vol. i. p. 292.