RHENVS - There are two medals in large bronze, the types which represent Germania vanquished (alluding to a |victory| to which Domitian fasely laid claim). In the former a German, on his knee, surrenders a long |shield|, that is, his arms, to the emperor. In the latter the vain-glorious Domitian treads underfoot the Rhine, which serves here as the symbol of Germany.
That the river personified on the last-mentioned medal signifies the Rhine (which Domitian, as Zonaras writes, passed over in his expedition of AD 84), is indicated by other coins similar to this, except that, as Patin and Morell have delineated them, they exhibit RHENVS written in the exergue.
As coins of the former kind are common, so those with the word RHENVS are of the greatest rarity, inless perhaps it be safer to suspect them of being counterfeits; for it is exceedingly strange that the name in question was unknown to Vaillant, and that they are also unknown in the finest collections.
Nor does Morell add to his engraving of the coin any reference to the museum which contains it; whence it would appear that he had followed only the authority of others. It was from the Rhine that Martial took a subject matter for adulation, when addressing the prince; he says; Tibi summe Rheni domitor, etc. Epig. |ix|. |vii|.