ROMAN EMPIRE - NOVEL Leo II (January to November 474). Solidus with Zeno ND (474), Constantinople, 9th office. Av D N LEO ET Z - ENO PP AVG. Bust cuirassed and helmeted front, holding haste and shield. Rv. SALVS REI - PVBLICAE (officine)/ CONOB. The two Emperors crowned and nimbed, seated frontally on a throne, each holding the mappa, a cross above and a star above. RIC.X.803; Gold - 4.46 g - 20 mm - 6 h NGC MS 3/5 4/5 adjusted flan die shift edge cuts (8524413-001). The strike is barely trebled, with a fine corner split to the right. A tiny notch at 10 o'clock on the listel on the reverse. Good centering with the original brightness barely burnished. Superb with corner flower. The old Eastern Roman emperor Leo I had no son and was looking for a successor. His hopes were pinned on his eldest daughter, Aelia Ariadne, who had married an Isaurian soldier named Zeno. The couple soon had a son, Leo II. When Leo I's health began to fail, he raised his eponymous grandson to the rank of Caesar in October 473, then Augustus in January 474. However, Leo I died a few days later, and Leo II, then aged seven, became Emperor. Leo's widow, Aelia Verina, arranged for Leo II to appoint her own father, Zeno, as co-emperor on 9 February 474, an arrangement that lasted until Leo II's death in November of the same year, before Zeno reigned alone.