500 
of his future destiny to empire, the sun had appeared with a 
crown of rays over his father's house on the day of his birth. 
The mother of Aurelian was a priestess of the sun ; he himself 
was so devoted to this worship, that he built a splendid 
temple to the sun at Rome. The emperors of this period 
all wear, instead of the wreath of bay, the radiated crown, 
the emblem at once of divinity and of the solar rays. 
Gallienus frequently appeared in public with it on his head. 
To the same inclination towards the worship of the heavenly 
luminaries I should attribute the circumstance that the bust 
of Salonina, the wife of Gallienus, and some later empresses, 
is placed on their coins over a crescent moon. A disposition 
to neglect the gods of their own mythology for those of 
Egypt and the east, is apparent in all this period of Roman 
history, and is one among many indications that Paganism 
had become a "creed outworn," and was on the eve of giving 
place to a purer religion. 
The misfortunes of the reign of Gallienus appear to have 
awakened all the superstitious feelings of the people, and, 
according to ancient custom, the Sybilline oracles were con- 
sulted. They enjoined sacrifices in propitiation of the gods, 
and especially to Jupiter Salutaris. To this excited state of 
the public mind, Eckhel refers the circumstance that such an 
extraordinary number of coins of this reign bear figures and 
legends of the gods. The Nunburnholme collection contains 
coins inscribed to Jupiter Conservator, Jupiter Propugnator, 
Jupiter Ultor, Sol Conservator, Neptunus Conservator, 
Apollo Conservator, Diana Conservatrix, Liber Pater Con- 
servator, and Mars Pacifer. We may, with some probability, 
refer to the same state of alarm respecting the public welfare, 
the singular inscription of a coin of the Empress Salonina, 
" Dea? Segetiae." She is a goddess who would be sought 
in vain in Tooke or Keighley, yet she had been worshipped 
by the common people of Rome since the foundation of the 
