Late Western Roman Empire Bronze (Gratian)

Flavius Gratianus became emperor upon the death of his father Valentinian. Within days, the eastern legions acclaimed his four year old half-brother Valentinian II, as co-emperor, an awkward situation that Gratian felt compelled to accept rather than go to war over. Gratian did campaign with some success against the Alemanni and the Alans, ultimately employing some of the latter as mercenaries, a move that proved unpopular with the rest of his army. As a consequence, when Gratian marched into Gaul to confront the usurper Magnus Maximus, his forces forthwith betrayed him and threw in with the latter's cause. Gratian fled, but was shortly thereafter assassinated anyway.





For whatever reason, I don't see too many issues for this emperor. What interested me about this specimen was the "AVGGG" on the reverse, which is indicative of how much imperial power both was contested and had dissipated by this period.

Although the mint mark looks rather like "SNKD" or "SNKP", I think this is in fact RIC IX Cyzicus 17a, for which the mint mark is supposed to be SMKB.