Roman
Ancient Coin
Silver Denarius
of
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
(Emperor 193-211A.D.)
Obv: SEVERVS PIVS AVG
Laureate bust of Emperor right
Rev: VOTA SVCEPTA XX
Emperor standing sacrificing from patera over altar
18.00 mm
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The attribution label is printed on archival museum quality paper
An interesting silver coin of Septimius Severus. Emperor Septimius Severus on obverse and Emperor sacreficing on reverse. This coin comes with display case, stand and attribution label attached as pictured.
The attribution label is printed on archival museum quality paper. A great way to display an ancient coins collection! You are welcome to
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SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
Lucius Septimius Severus was born on 1 April AD 145 at Lepcis Magna in Tripolitania.
His family was of African descent. His paternal great-grandfather,
who had moved from Lepcis Magna to Italy and become an equestrian, was
most likely of Punic origin and his mother, Fulvia Pia, was from a
family which had moved from Africa to Italy.
Little is known of Severus' father, Publius Septimius Geta, other than that he had two cousins who became consuls.
Severus was a small man, but powerfully built. Though in old age
he was to became very weak and ridden with gout. He was not very well
educated, he spoke little in public. And so too, he is renowned for his
cruelty and ruthlessness. The Historian Cassius Dio says about him,
'Severus was careful of everything that he desired to accomplish, but
careless of what was said about him.
Shortly after his eighteenth birthday Severus arrived in Rome and
was appointed senator by Marcus Aurelius in about AD 175. Thereafter he
became governor of Gallia Lugdunensis and Sicily and, towards the end of
Commodus' reign, he was made consul in AD 190.
Then as the plot thickened to kill Commodus, an African friend of
Severus', the praetorian prefect Laetus, placed people he could rely on
in key positions of the empire. And so his friend Severus was put in
place as governor of Upper Pannonia.
The plot succeeded and brought Pertinax to power. But soon after
Pertinax was murdered and Didius Julianus bought the throne from the
praetorian guard. Laetus was executed for his involvement with the
murder of Commodus.
The three main people who had been placed in powerful positions by
Laetus all found it was time to act. The three were Severus, Pescennius
Niger and Clodius Albinus.
Severus had himself acclaimed emperor by his troops at Carnuntum
in AD 193. Pescennius Niger was hailed emperor by his troops in the
east. Clodius Albinus meanwhile didn't have himself hailed emperor, but
he was undoubtedly waiting in the wings, preparing for the right moment.
But Clodius Albinus, commander of the legions in Britain and with
much support in the senate, was approached by Severus, who granted him
the position of Caesar (junior emperor). This junior position clearly
implied that Clodius Albinus was marked out as Severus' successor, or so
at least Albinus was led to believe. It was a shrewd political trick to
buy off Clodius, as it now left Severus to advance rapidly on Rome.
Advancing with no less than 16 legions under his command, opposition
simply crumbled before him.
Severus ignored all of Julianus' threats and pleas, and shortly
before his army's arrival at Rome, Julianus was indeed sentenced to
death by the senate and was thereafter killed in his deserted palace.
Once he arrived in Rome, Severus had those involved in the murder
of Pertinax executed. Meanwhile the praetorian guard which had proved
such a threat to any emperor was disbanded, and its members were
banished from Rome. Instead he put in its place a force double in size,
made up of men drawn from his army, especially the Danubian legions.
Severus also trebled the number of the city cohorts (the police of
Rome) and doubled the fire brigade (vigiles) in order to increase the
city's security.
To raise morale in the army, the institution which had clearly
established him on the throne, he increased their pay from three hundred
to five hundred denarii a year.
Having firmly established himself at Rome and knowing his western
borders toward Albinus secured with his grant of the caesarship, Severus
was free to move eastwards and deal with Pescennius Niger. In AD 194
Severus Severus crushed Niger's forces at Issus on the very plain on
which Alexander the Great had defeat Darius some 500 years earlier.
With his opponent dead, Severus could now further stamp his
authority on the east. The supporters of Niger were harshly punished,
many of them fleeing to the Parthians, who had helped Niger in his
fight. In order that no future governors of Syria should take up the
idea of proclaiming themselves emperor, the powerful province was split
in two; Coele-Syria and Phoenicia.
To follow up on his success and punish the Parthians, Severus lead
a punitive campaign against the Osrhoeni of Mesopotamia and other
Parthian vassals across the border.
His rule of the east secured, Severus now turned his attention to
Clodius Albinus. First he declared his elder son Caracalla to be Caesar
and therefore his heir late in AD 195. This was clearly a slap in the
face to Albinus, who understood himself successor to the throne.
In effect it was a veiled challenge and Albinus took it up. In AD
196 he too had himself hailed emperor by his troops and then set across
the channel into Gaul with 40'000 men, collecting more forces as he
moved on towards Rome.
Severus, having only briefly returned to Rome in AD 196-7, in
January AD 197 set out for his power base on the Danube. From there in
Pannonia he began a march west, through Noricum, Raetia, Upper Germany
and Gaul, gathering troops as he went.
The huge armies tentatively met at first at Tinurtium. Severus
achieved victory, but it proved of little meaning. The full battle was
still to follow at Lugdunum (Lyons) on 19 February AD 197. It was a very
close battle. At one point an advance by one section of Albinus' troops
was so close to Severus, he was thrown from his horse and decided to
throw away his cloak marking him out as emperor in an attempt to conceal
his identity. But this advance was eventually pushed back, saving the
emperor.
The battle still hung in the balance for a long time, but alas Severus' side won.
Clodius Albinus fled into the town of Lugdunum (Lyons) seeking to
escape. But discovering that escape was impossible, he killed himself
(or he was stabbed).
What followed was very revealing about the man who was now the
uncontested emperor of the Roman empire. Severus had Albinus stripped
corpse laid out on the ground, so that he he could ride over it and
trample it with his horse. Thereafter Albinus' head was severed and sent
to Rome. His body, along with those of his wife and sons, was flung
into the Rhine.
Albinus' province Britain was thereafter, like Niger's Syrian
province, divided into two parts; Britannia Superior and Inferior.
If Albinus had enjoyed support in the senate, then Severus now
clamped down on those supporters. He ruthlessly put to death 29 senators
and numerous equestrians in Rome.
This cruelty and vindictiveness earned Severus the nickname 'the
Punic Sulla', referring to his African origin and the notoriously
vengeful dictator of the Roman republic.
Now, Severus attentions once more turned back to Parthia. Had his
earlier expedition into Parthia been a brief affair, most likely as he
felt he had to return to the west to take care of Albinus, then now he
was undisputed ruler and had no such restrictions.
Parthia, so he decided, now should suffer his wrath for intervening in favour of Pescennius Niger.
No doubt, there were also other considerations. Severus was in
essence a military man. And he and his generals naturally sought
military glories.
The war was brief, for Parthia was weak at the time. By the end of
AD 197 the capital Ctesiphon was captured. Once again Severus
ruthlessness shows in the fact that all the men were killed, and the
women and children (roughly 100'000) were sold into slavery.
Thereafter Mesopotamia was once more annexed as a province of the Roman empire.
But Severus should not have it all his way. The strategic fortress
city of Hatra was besieged twice without success, making it clear that
not all of Mesopotamia was in Roman hands.
The business of government was largely conducted on Severus'
behalf by his praetorian prefects, who quickly became loathed by the
public. Most notorious of all was the close friend of the emperor,
prefect Gaius Fulvius Plautianus, who didn't take long to gain a
reputation for abuses of power and utter cruelty. There was even a
rumour that for his daughter Publia Fulvia Plautilla, who was wed to the
emperor's son Caracalla, he had grown men castrated to be her
eunuch-servants.
Caracalla, who had been made co-emperor in early AD 198, resented
being married to Plautianus' daughter, is said to perhaps have arranged
his assassination. Things are unclear. Accounts differ. Either Caracalla
ordered three officers to carry a false warning to Severus that he and
Caracalla were in danger of Plautianus, or they actually was a real
plot. Whichever version is true, Severus acted swiftly and had his
powerful prefect executed.
Thereafter the corpse was flung onto the street, where the public took out its anger on the hated figure.
Throughout his reign Severus was one of the outstanding imperial
builders. He restored a very large number of ancient buildings - and
inscribed on them his own name, as though he had erected them. His home
town Lepcis Magna benefited in particular. But most of all the famous
Triumphal Arch of Severus at the Forum of Rome bears witness to his
reign.
His health fading and weak from gout, Severus woudl set out one
last time on military campaign. This time it was Britain which demanded
the emperor's attention. The Antonine Wall had never really acted as a
perfectly successful barrier to the troublesome barbarians to the north
of it. By this time it had in fact been virtually abandoned, leaving the
British provinces vulnerable to attack from the north. In AD 208
Severus left for Britain with his two quarrelsome sons. Large military
campaigns now drove deep into Scotland but didn't really manage to
create any lasting solution to the problem.
It is worth mentioning though that there is a tale by which
Caracalla was said to have tried to stab Severus in the back at one
point, when Severus and his son were riding ahead of the army. But
Severus was supposedly warned by shouts from the soldiers behind.
However, this tale seems to have little credibility as it otherwise
would have seemed impossible for Caracalla to have remained heir
thereafter. With the campaigns to conquer the Caledonian territories not
being of any lasting success, Hadrian's Wall instead was reconstructed,
this time in stone, to defend the frontier.
Alas Severus fell ill at Eburacum (York), where he died at the age of sixty-six (4 February AD 211).
'Keep on good terms with each other,' is said to have been his
last advice to his sons, 'be generous to the soldiers, and take no heed
of anyone else !"
His sons Caracalla and Geta brought an end to any military
campaigns into the Scotland which were still underway and then set out
home, carrying the ashes of their father to Rome, where they were laid
to rest in the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Soon after he was deified by the
senate.