1 · carnuntum, ad 260 2 · the man and his problem 3 · the trick 4 · how rare 5 · lost addresses 6 · the people 7 · the ending

vizmaya desk · 6 November 2026

Regalianus: the Roman emperor who stamped his face on old coins

In AD 260 a Roman general declared himself emperor. He lasted a few months. All that is left of him is about 130 coins, and every one was struck on top of an older coin.

About 130 coins.

That is all that survives of an emperor. Why are they all made from older coins?

A border town with a stadium

Grass-covered ruins of a Roman amphitheatre with a ring of low stone walls
The Roman amphitheatre at Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, part of the Carnuntum site. Photo: Pudelek (Marcin Szala) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Carnuntum sat on the Danube river, about 40 kilometres east of today's Vienna Austria. The museum says this is where Regalianus was made emperor.

Where the coins turn up

Plan of the Roman city of Carnuntum with its streets and buildings
Plan of Roman Carnuntum. Image: Archaeotux / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

His coins are found mostly around Carnuntum and the nearby Roman town of Vindobona. That tells us his power stayed local.

260: a Roman emperor is captured

Carved rock relief of a Persian king on horseback with a Roman emperor kneeling before him
Rock relief of Shapur I's triumph over Roman emperors, Naqsh-e Rostam Iran. Photo: Carole Raddato / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Persian king Shapur I captured the Roman emperor Valerian. Rome had never lost an emperor like this.

Then everyone wanted the job

With the emperor gone, generals across the empire declared themselves emperor. Later writers called them the "thirty tyrants".

Regalianus, at Carnuntum, was one of them.

Who was he?

LegendA late Roman book says he came from the line of Decebalus, the old Dacian king.

Likely truthScholars doubt it. His wife came from a high Roman family, so he was probably a Roman of high rank.

Front and back of a small silver coin showing a veiled woman's bust on a crescent and a standing goddess
A coin of his wife, Sulpicia Dryantilla, named Augusta (empress). Photo: author not recorded / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

His name is a mess.

His coins say P. C. Regalianus. Eutropius wrote "Trebellianus". Aurelius Victor wrote "Regillianus".

He had a problem

A new emperor needs soldiers on his side. Soldiers want pay, and they want to see the new emperor's face on the money.

Researchers sayThere were no silver mines near Carnuntum. He needed silver from somewhere else.

The trick: hit an old coin with a new stamp

His coin makers cut new dies with his face and his wife's. They struck them onto old silver coins called denarii. Researchers found coins of Septimius Severus, Severus Alexander and Maximinus Thrax underneath.

Silver denarius coin showing the head of Septimius Severus
A denarius of Septimius Severus. Image: American Numismatic Society / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Silver denarius coin showing the head of Severus Alexander
A denarius of Severus Alexander. Image: American Numismatic Society / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Silver denarius coin showing the head of Maximinus Thrax
A denarius of Maximinus Thrax. Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

These are coins of the same kind, not the ones he used. On one coin of Dryantilla, scholars could still read part of the words IMP ALEXANDER PIVS AVG from the coin hiding underneath.

The coins underneath were 28 to 62 years old

On one coin the old denarius dates to AD 231 or 232, under Severus Alexander. That is 28 to 29 years before Regalianus. On another it was a Septimius Severus denarius from AD 198 to 202, about 58 to 62 years earlier.

Researchers thinkThe old coins held more silver than the weak coins of 260. That is their reading, not a proven fact.

Source: Găzdac, Melchart, Pollhammer, JAHA 2018 and JAHA 2022.

Vienna now owns 22 of about 130 known coins

The museum says about 130 coins of the pair are known. About two thirds were in private hands when it asked the public for help. In April 2025 it bought 22, which is 14 to 17 out of every 100, depending on whose count you use.

Source: Kunsthistorisches Museum, appeal page (German).

The count is not settled.

A 2015 paper counted 129. The museum says about 130. A coin-trade magazine says about 160.

Most coins left the ground with no address

Archaeologists need to know exactly where a coin was found. In one 2018 study, three coins came from Carnuntum, like most of the others, but nobody wrote down where.

A few do have an address. Two were dug up in 2008 and 2009 at the military amphitheatre, and one in the civilian town between the baths and a villa.

Without the spot, a coin loses much of what it can tell us about the place and the date.

One coin got its address by luck.

A photo from 1971 had a note on the back: found near the old forum of Carnuntum. Scholars published it in 2022, 51 years later.

Vienna has been collecting him for a long time

A Regalianus coin was engraved in 1767. A Dryantilla coin was already in the museum's collection before 1875. Another came as a gift in 1913, one was bought in 2010, and 22 more arrived in 2025.

Source: Kunsthistorisches Museum catalogue entries RÖ 20748, RÖ 38332, RÖ 95071, and the Coin Cabinet page.

Klaus Vondrovec

Director of the Coin Cabinet since 2021 and its curator of ancient coins since 2008. He is credited on the catalogue's news item about the coins and gave a talk on them on 8 November 2025.

The people who put coins online

Kathrin Siegl and David Burisch worked with Vondrovec to document and identify over 5,000 find coins from the Nowak collection. Anyone can search them for free in the museum's online catalogue, called IKMK.

The appeal and the rooms

Sandra Eichinger is the museum's fundraising contact on the appeal page. Andrea Spinka leads the highlight tours of the Coin Cabinet.

The researchers

Cristian Găzdac of Babeș-Bolyai University, Eduard Pollhammer of the Archaeological Park Carnuntum and Werner Melchart wrote the studies on the overstruck coins and on the 1971 photo.

The donors and the camera

About 160 names on the museum's donor wall helped close the last 64,500 euros. The museum's own photo studio took the catalogue pictures.

What we still do not know

  • The total price of the 22 coins. The museum only said it needed 64,500 euros to finish the purchase. We looked. We did not find it.
  • Why the count is 130 in one place and 160 in another.
  • Whether he built a mint. The museum says Carnuntum had none. One scholarly encyclopedia says he set one up in a hurry.
  • How he died. The most accepted idea is a raid by a tribe called the Roxolani, perhaps helped by some of his own men.

The payoff

An emperor nobody could spell now has 22 coins in a public museum. About 160 donor names, a catalogue team and a few researchers made that happen.

Front of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, a large domed stone building
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo: C1815 / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Search the coins yourself in the free online catalogue. On 11 November at 17:30 the Coin Cabinet hosts a talk on money, power and trust with the Complexity Science Hub.

Sources & method

Every figure here has a primary source or two sources. Claims we could not confirm are left out, and counts that disagree are shown as disagreeing. Photos of the museum's own coins use a non-commercial licence, so we did not copy them. See them in the catalogue.

Museum and catalogue

Research and press

Image credits

  • Amphitheatre: Pudelek (Marcin Szala), CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Carnuntum plan: Archaeotux, CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Shapur relief: Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Dryantilla coin: author not recorded, CC BY-SA 3.0
  • Denarii: American Numismatic Society and Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0
  • Museum exterior: C1815, public domain. All via Wikimedia Commons.

  1. An emperor made of old coins

    A Roman general named Regalianus ruled for a few months in AD 260. About 130 of his coins survive. Every one was struck over an older coin, and Vienna's museum just bought 22.

  2. The hook

    He ruled from Carnuntum, a border town on the Danube. The museum says it lies about 40 kilometres east of today's Vienna. Why do all his coins sit on top of older ones?

  3. It starts with a captured emperor

    In 260 the Persian king Shapur I captured the Roman emperor Valerian. Generals across the empire declared themselves emperor, and Regalianus was one of them.

  4. Nobody agrees who he was

    One late Roman book says he came from a Dacian king. Scholars doubt it. Even his name is spelled three ways.

  5. A new emperor needs silver

    Soldiers want pay and a face on the coin. Researchers say there were no silver mines nearby, so he turned to old silver.

  6. The trick

    His coin makers hit old denarii with new dies. The old emperors' faces can still be seen under his. On one coin of his wife, you can still read part of Severus Alexander's name.

  7. How old were the old coins?

    The old coins on two studied pieces were 28 to 29 and 58 to 62 years old. Researchers think they were chosen for their silver, but that is a reading, not a fact.

  8. How rare is rare?

    The museum says about 130 coins of the pair are known. In 2025 it bought 22, about 14 to 17 out of every 100. The count itself is disputed.

  9. Most coins have no address

    Most of them left the ground with no recorded find-spot. One coin got its address because someone wrote it on the back of a photo in 1971. Scholars only published it in 2022.

  10. Vienna has wanted him for centuries

    A Regalianus coin was engraved in 1767. Vienna's catalogue shows Dryantilla coins arriving before 1875, in 1913 and in 2010, and 22 more in 2025.

  11. The people behind the coins

    A director, a catalogue team, a fundraiser, researchers and about 160 donors. Most of them never appear next to the coins.

  12. What we do not know

    The total price, the real count, whether he built a mint and exactly how he died. We left those open on purpose.

  13. The payoff

    An emperor nobody could spell now has 22 coins in a public museum, free to search online. A talk on money, power and trust is on 11 November at 17:30.

  14. Look at the whole board

    From a lost emperor to old silver to a museum catalogue. Everything here is checked against its source, and the gaps are marked.