Beautiful item!
I too
had immediately thought Tetrarchic (1st) given the four heads and the
style.
However, I see that one of the two threads Areich linked to postulates that it is instead
Valerian I and
his family (
Gallienus,
Valerian II and
Saloninus I guess). That is interesting and makes sense in some ways. First these are usually most common in early to mid 3rd century. I have a very similar one showing what is almost certainly a
bust of
Gallienus. Second the fact that they all wear
radiate crowns is more indicitive of mid-3rd century than Tetrarchic despite fact the Tetrarchic gang
still used
radiate crown on pre- and post-reform radiates.
Shawn
