ANTONINUS PIUS 145AD Alexandria in Egypt Ancient Roman Coin Dolphin i41498

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Item: i41498

 

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:


Antoninus Pius

Roman Emperor
: 138-161 A.D.

Bronze Obol 18mm (3.36 grams) of
Alexandria
in
Egypt

Dated Regnal Year 9, 145/146 A.D.
Reference: Köln -; Emmett 1767
AVT. K. T. AIΛ. AΔP. ANTWNINOC, Laureate
head right.
L ЄNATOV, Dolphin entwined around trident.

* Numismatic Note: Extremely rare. Emmett cites only one
example of this coin, ANS inv. 1934.73.21 (which he lists as 1935-73-21).

You are bidding on the exact

item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime

Guarantee of Authenticity.

Alexandria was founded
by
Alexander the Great
in April 331 BC as
Ἀλεξάνδρεια (Alexándreia).
Alexander’s
chief architect
for the project was
Dinocrates
. Alexandria was intended to
supersede Naucratis
as a
Hellenistic
center in Egypt, and to be the link
between Greece and the rich

Nile Valley
. An Egyptian city,
Rhakotis
, already existed on the shore, and
later gave its name to Alexandria in the
Egyptian language
(Egyptian *Raˁ-Ḳāṭit,
written rˁ-ḳṭy.t, ‘That which is built up’). It continued to exist as the
Egyptian quarter of the city. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left
Egypt and never returned to his city. After Alexander’s departure, his viceroy,
Cleomenes
, continued the expansion. Following a
struggle with the other successors of Alexander, his general
Ptolemy
succeeded in bringing Alexander’s body
to Alexandria.


Alexandria, sphinx made of
pink granite
,
Ptolemaic
.

Although Cleomenes was mainly in charge of overseeing Alexandria’s continuous
development, the Heptastadion and the mainland quarters seem to have been
primarily Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined
Tyre
and becoming the centre of the new
commerce between Europe and the
Arabian
and Indian East, the city grew in less
than a generation to be larger than
Carthage
. In a century, Alexandria had become
the largest city in the world and, for some centuries more, was second only to
Rome. It became Egypt’s main Greek city, with
Greek people
from diverse backgrounds.

Alexandria was not only a centre of
Hellenism
, but was also home to the largest
Jewish community in the world. The
Septuagint
, a Greek translation of the
Hebrew Bible
, was produced there. The early
Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the
leading Hellenistic center of learning (Library
of Alexandria
), but were careful to maintain the distinction of its
population’s three largest ethnicities: Greek, Jewish, and
Egyptian
. From this division arose much of the
later turbulence, which began to manifest itself under
Ptolemy Philopater
who reigned from 221–204 BC.
The reign of
Ptolemy VIII Physcon
from 144–116 BC was marked
by purges and civil warfare..

The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 BC, according to the
will of
Ptolemy Alexander
, but only after it had been
under Roman influence for more than a hundred years. It was captured by
Julius Caesar
in 47 BC during a Roman
intervention in the domestic civil war between king
Ptolemy XIII
and his advisers, and the fabled
queen
Cleopatra VII
. It was finally captured by
Octavian
, future
emperor
Augustus on 1 August 30 BC, with the
name of the month later being changed to August to commemorate his
victory.

In AD 115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the
Kitos War
, which gave
Hadrian
and his architect,
Decriannus
, an opportunity to rebuild it. In
215, the
emperor

Caracalla
visited the city and, because of some
insulting satires
that the inhabitants had directed at
him, abruptly commanded his troops to
put to death
all youths capable of bearing
arms. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a
tsunami
(365
Crete earthquake
),[3]
an event still annually commemorated 17 hundred years later as a “day of
horror.”[4]
In the late 4th century, persecution of
pagans
by newly Christian Romans had reached
new levels of intensity. In 391, the Patriarch
Theophilus
destroyed all pagan temples in
Alexandria under orders from Emperor
Theodosius I
. The
Brucheum
and Jewish quarters were desolate in
the 5th century. On the mainland, life seemed to have centred in the vicinity of
the Serapeum and
Caesareum
, both of which became
Christian churches
. The
Pharos
and Heptastadium quarters,
however, remained populous and were left intact.[citation
needed
]

In 619, Alexandria
fell
to the
Sassanid Persians
. Although the
Byzantine Emperor

Heraclius
recovered it in 629, in 641 the Arabs
under the general
Amr ibn al-As
captured it during the
Muslim conquest of Egypt
, after a siege that
lasted 14 months.


Antoninus Pius Glyptothek Munich 337 cropped.jpg

Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus (19 September 86 – 7

March 161), generally known in English as Antoninus Pius was

Roman emperor

from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the

Five Good Emperors

and a member of the

Aurelii
. He

did not possess the

sobriquet

Pius” until after

his accession to the throne. Almost certainly, he earned the name “Pius” because

he compelled the

Senate

to deify his adoptive father

Hadrian
; the

Historia Augusta

, however, suggests that he may have earned the name by

saving senators sentenced to death by Hadrian in his later years.

//

 Early

life

 Childhood

and family

He was the son and only child of

Titus Aurelius Fulvus

,

consul
in 89

whose family came from

Nemausus

(modern Nîmes
)

and was born near

Lanuvium

and his mother was Arria Fadilla. Antoninus’ father and paternal grandfather

died when he was young and he was raised by

Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus

, his maternal grandfather, a man of integrity and

culture and a friend of

Pliny the Younger

. His mother married to Publius Julius Lupus (a man of

consular rank),

Suffect

Consul
in 98, and bore him a daughter called Julia Fadilla.

 Marriage

and children

As a private citizen between 110 and 115, he married Annia Galeria

Faustina the Elder

. They had a very happy marriage. She was the daughter of

consul

Marcus Annius Verus

and

Rupilia

Faustina (a half-sister to Roman Empress

Vibia

Sabina
). Faustina was a beautiful woman, renowned for her wisdom. She spent

her whole life caring for the poor and assisting the most disadvantaged Romans.

Faustina bore Antoninus four children, two sons and two daughters. They were:

  • Marcus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus (died before 138); his sepulchral

    inscription has been found at the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome.

  • Marcus Galerius Aurelius Antoninus (died before 138); his sepulchral

    inscription has been found at the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome. His name

    appears on a Greek Imperial coin.

  • Aurelia Fadilla (died in 135); she married Lucius Lamia Silvanus, consul

    145. She appeared to have no children with her husband and her sepulchral

    inscription has been found in

    Italy
    .

  • Annia Galeria Faustina Minor or

    Faustina the Younger

    (between 125-130-175), a future Roman Empress,

    married her maternal cousin, future Roman Emperor

    Marcus Aurelius

    .

When Faustina died in 141, he was in complete mourning and did the following

in memory of his wife:

  • Deified her as a goddess.
  • Had a temple built in the Roman Forum in her name, with priestesses in

    the temple.

  • Had various coins with her portrait struck in her honor. These coins

    were scripted ‘DIVAE FAUSTINA’ and were elaborately decorated.

  • He created a charity which he founded and called it Puellae

    Faustinianae or Girls of Faustina, which assisted orphaned girls.

  • Created a new alimenta (see

    Grain supply to the city of Rome

    ).

 Favour

with Hadrian

Having filled with more than usual success the offices of

quaestor

and praetor
,

he obtained the consulship in 120; he was next appointed by the Emperor

Hadrian
as

one of the four

proconsuls

to administer

Italia

, then greatly increased his reputation by his conduct as

proconsul

of

Asia

. He acquired much favor with the Emperor Hadrian, who adopted him as

his son and successor on 25 February, 138, after the death of his first adopted

son Lucius Aelius

, on the condition that Antoninus would in turn adopt Marcus

Annius Verus, the son of his wife’s brother, and Lucius, son of Aelius Verus,

who afterwards became the emperors

Marcus Aurelius

and

Lucius

Verus
(colleague of Marcus Aurelius).

 Emperor

On his accession, Antoninus’ name became “Imperator Caesar Titus Aelius

Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pontifex Maximus”. One of his first acts as Emperor

was to persuade the

Senate

to grant divine honours to Hadrian, which they had at first refused; his efforts

to persuade the Senate to grant these honours is the most likely reason given

for his title of Pius (dutiful in affection; compare

pietas

). Two other reasons for this title are that he would support his

aged father-in-law with his hand at Senate meetings, and that he had saved those

men that Hadrian, during his period of ill-health, had condemned to death. He

built temples, theaters, and mausoleums, promoted the arts and sciences, and

bestowed honours and financial rewards upon the teachers of

rhetoric

and philosophy

.

In marked contrast to his predecessors

Trajan
and

Hadrian
,

Antoninus was not a military man. One modern scholar has written “It is almost

certain not only that at no time in his life did he ever see, let alone command,

a Roman army, but that, throughout the twenty-three years of his reign, he never

went within five hundred miles of a legion”.[2]

His reign was the most peaceful in the entire history of the

Principate
;

while there were several military disturbances throughout the Empire in his

time, in Mauretania

,

Iudaea

, and amongst the

Brigantes

in Britannia

, none of them are considered serious. The unrest in Britannia is

believed to have led to the construction of the

Antonine Wall

from the

Firth of Forth

to the

Firth of Clyde

, although it was soon abandoned. He was virtually unique

among emperors in that he dealt with these crises without leaving Italy once

during his reign, but instead dealt with provincial matters of war and peace

through their governors or through imperial letters to the cities such as

Ephesus (of which some were publicly displayed). This style of government was

highly praised by his contemporaries and by later generations.

Of the public transactions of this period we have scant information, but, to

judge by what we possess, those twenty-two years were not remarkably eventful in

comparison to those before and after his; the surviving evidence is not complete

enough to determine whether we should interpret, with older scholars, that he

wisely curtailed the activities of the Roman Empire to a careful minimum, or

perhaps that he was uninterested in events away from Rome and

Italy
and his

inaction contributed to the pressing troubles that faced not only Marcus

Aurelius but also the emperors of the third century. German historian Ernst

Kornemann has had it in his Römische Geschichte [2 vols., ed. by H. Bengtson,

Stuttgart 1954] that the reign of Antoninus comprised “a succession of grossly

wasted opportunities,” given the upheavals that were to come. There is more to

this argument, given that the Parthians in the East were themselves soon to make

no small amount of mischief after Antoninus’ passing. Kornemann’s brief is that

Antoninus might have waged preventive wars to head off these outsiders.

Scholars place Antoninus Pius as the leading candidate for fulfilling the

role as a friend of Rabbi

Judah

the Prince
. According to the

Talmud
(Avodah

Zarah 10a-b), Rabbi Judah was very wealthy and greatly revered in Rome. He had a

close friendship with “Antoninus”, possibly Antoninus Pius,[3]

who would consult Rabbi Judah on various worldly and spiritual matters.

Temple of Antoninus and

Faustina

in the

Roman forum

(now the church of

San Lorenzo in Miranda

). The emperor and his

Augusta

were deified after their death by

Marcus Aurelius

.

After the longest reign since Augustus (surpassing

Tiberius
by

a couple of months), Antoninus died of fever at

Lorium
in

Etruria
,

about twelve miles (19 km) from Rome, on 7 March 161, giving the keynote to his

life in the last word that he uttered when the

tribune
of

the night-watch came to ask the password—”aequanimitas” (equanimity). His body

was placed in

Hadrian’s mausoleum

, a

column

was dedicated to him on the

Campus Martius

, and the

temple

he had built in the Forum in 141 to his deified wife Faustina was

rededicated to the deified Faustina and the deified Antoninus.

 Historiography

The only account of his life handed down to us is that of the

Augustan History

, an unreliable and mostly fabricated work. Antoninus is

unique among Roman emperors in that he has no other biographies. Historians have

therefore turned to public records for what details we know.

 In

later scholarship

Antoninus in many ways was the ideal of the landed gentleman praised not only

by ancient Romans, but also by later scholars of classical history, such as

Edward Gibbon

or the author of the article on Antoninus Pius in the ninth

edition of the

Encyclopedia Britannicaca:

A few months afterwards, on Hadrian’s death, he was enthusiastically

welcomed to the throne by the Roman people, who, for once, were not

disappointed in their anticipation of a happy reign. For Antoninus came

to his new office with simple tastes, kindly disposition, extensive

experience, a well-trained intelligence and the sincerest desire for the

welfare of his subjects. Instead of plundering to support his

prodigality, he emptied his private treasury to assist distressed

provinces and cities, and everywhere exercised rigid economy (hence the

nickname κυμινοπριστης “cummin-splitter”). Instead of exaggerating into

treason whatever was susceptible of unfavorable interpretation, he

spurned the very conspiracies that were formed against him into

opportunities for demonstrating his clemency. Instead of stirring up

persecution against the Christians, he extended to them the strong hand

of his protection throughout the empire. Rather than give occasion to

that oppression which he regarded as inseparable from an emperor’s

progress through his dominions, he was content to spend all the years of

his reign in Rome, or its neighborhood.


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