Maximian AE Post-Reform Radiate (CONCORDIA MILITVM, RIC VI 15b)

MAXIMIAN, AD 286-305
AE Post-Reform Radiate (22.17mm, 2.91g, 12h)
Struck AD 295-299. Cyzicus mint
Obverse: IMP C M A MAXIMIANVS P F AVG, radiate and cuirassed bust of Maximian right
Reverse: CONCORDIA MI-LITVM, Maximian, in military attire, standing right holding short scepter and receiving Victory on globe from Jupiter standing left, holding long vertical scepter; KS in center field
References: RIC VI 15b, RCV 13315

From the collection of Commodore Daniel Turner (1794-1850), naval veteran of the War of 1812 and later captain of the USS Constitution.

The son of a naval officer, Daniel Turner (born 1794, Staten Island, New York) began his own career in the United States Navy as a midshipman on January 1, 1808, at the age of fourteen. Following brief duty at the New York Naval Station, he served aboard the USS Constitution on the North Atlantic Station. On June 17, 1810, he transferred to the frigate President and remained there until June 1812, when he was ordered to Norwich, Connecticut to command the gunboats there. On March 12, 1813, Turner received his commission as a lieutenant.
On March 14, two days later, Turner was sent to Sackett's Harbor, New York, located on the shores of Lake Erie. There, he took command of Niagara, a brig in Oliver Hazard Perry's squadron. However, just before the Battle of Lake Erie, he relinquished command to Captain Jesse D. Elliott and assumed command of Caledonia. The little brig played an important role in the battle on September 10, 1813, because, at one point in the action, her two 24-pounder long guns were the only ones in Perry's flotilla capable of returning the distant fire of the three heaviest Royal Navy ships then in the process of pounding Perry's flagship Lawrence. For his part in the American victory at Lake Erie, Lt. Turner received the praise of Perry, a vote of thanks and a medal from Congress, and a sword from the state of New York.
In the summer of 1814, Turner succeeded to the command of schooner Scorpion, and he cruised Lakes Erie and Huron in her supporting army operations around Detroit and blockading British forces at the Nottawasaga River and Lake Simcoe. On September 6, 1814, Turner and his command were captured by the British when he brought Scorpion alongside the former American schooner Tigress which, unbeknownst to him, had been captured a few days earlier. After a period of imprisonment at Fort Mackinac, Lt. Turner returned to the United States in exchange for a British prisoner of war.
Between 1815 and 1817, Turner cruised the Mediterranean in the frigate Java commanded by his old superior on the Great Lakes, Oliver Hazard Perry. During that deployment, Java visited Algiers and Tripoli in a show of American naval strength calculated to impress the Barbary pirates and intimidate them into honoring their treaties with the United States. In 1817, Java returned to Newport, Rhode Island, to be laid up.
Between 1819 and 1824, Turner returned to sea in the schooner Nonsuch attached to a squadron commanded again by Oliver Hazard Perry. In addition to hunting West Indian pirates, his ship sailed up the Orinoco River to carry Perry on a diplomatic mission to the Venezuelan government under Simon Bolivar. During the return downriver, Perry and many of the crew contracted yellow fever. Turner was close at hand when his mentor died at Trinidad on August 23, 1819. During the remaining years of Turner's assignment to Nonsuch, his ship worked along the east coast of the United States, patrolled in the West Indies to suppress piracy, and made a brief cruise to the Mediterranean in 1824.
Following shore duty at Boston, Massachusetts, Turner returned to sea in 1827 for a three-year assignment with the West India Squadron, as the commanding officer of Erie. In 1830, he came ashore again for three years at the Portsmouth Navy Yard.
Promoted to captain on March 3, 1835, Turner spent a long period waiting orders before returning to sea in 1839 in command of USS Constitution. He sailed the Pacific Squadron in "Old Ironsides," until he was relieved in 1841. From 1843 to 1846, he commanded the American squadron which operated along the Brazilian coast. From that duty, he reported ashore again as Commandant, Portsmouth Navy Yard.
Captain Daniel Turner died suddenly on February 4, 1850 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he was buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

(Adapted and compiled from the Foster History and the USS Constitution Museum websites)

In addition to being a competent naval commander, Daniel Turner was also a keen coin collector, and during his career he accumulated a large collection of nearly three hundred ancient coins, which he stored in a wooden chest along with his own handwritten labels. In 2015, 165 years after the Commodore's death, the Turner descendants consigned this collection to Cowan’s Auction house of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Collezione : Roman Imperial - the Tetrarchy