ANTONINUS PIUS Marcus Aurelius Father Ancient Roman Coin Snake Asclepius i49435

Item: i49435

 Authentic Ancient 

Coin of:

Antoninus Pius
–
Roman Emperor
: 138-161 A.D.
Father of Marcus Aurelius

 Bronze 20mm (4.33 grams) Struck in the Provincial mint of  138-161 A.D.
Laureate head right.

serpent-entwined (medical symbol) staff.  
 

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Guarantee of Authenticity.

Asclepius 
is the god of medicine
and healing in ancient
Greek religion
. Asclepius represents the 
healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are
Hygieia
(“Health”),

Iaso (“Medicine”),
Aceso
(“Healing”),
Aglæa/Ægle
(“Healthy Glow”), and
Panacea
(“Universal Remedy”). The
rod of Asclepius
, a snake-entwined staff, 
remains a symbol of medicine today, although sometimes the
caduceus
, or staff with two snakes, is 
mistakenly used instead. He was associated with the Roman/Etruscan god
Vediovis
. He was one of
Apollo
‘s servants.

The
rod of Asclepius, also known as the asklepian, is an ancient 
symbol associated with
astrology
, the
Greek

god
Asclepius
and with
medicine
and
healing
. It consists of a
serpent
entwined around a
staff
. The name of the symbol derives from its 
early and widespread association with
Asclepius
, the son of
Apollo
, who was a practitioner of medicine in 
ancient
Greek mythology
. His attributes, the snake and 
the staff, sometimes depicted separately in antiquity, are combined in this 
symbol. The Rod of Asclepius also represents the constellation
Ophiuchus
(or Ophiuchus Serpentarius), the 
thirteenth sign of the
sidereal zodiac
.
Hippocrates
himself was a worshipper of 
Asclepius.

Serpents and snakes play a role in many of the world’s myths and legends. 
Sometimes these mythic beasts appear as ordinary snakes. At other times, they 
take on magical or monstrous forms. Serpents and snakes have long been 
associated with good as well as with evil, representing both life and death, 
creation and destruction.

Serpents and Snakes as Symbols. In religion, mythology, and 
literature, serpents and snakes often stand for fertility or a creative life 
force—partly because the creatures can be seen as symbols of the male sex organ. 
They have also been associated with water and earth because many kinds of snakes 
live in the water or in holes in the ground. The ancient Chinese connected 
serpents with life-giving rain. Traditional beliefs in Australia, India, North 
America, and Africa have linked snakes with rainbows, which in turn are often 
related to rain and fertility.

As snakes grow, many of them shed their skin at various times, revealing a 
shiny new skin underneath. For this reason snakes have become symbols of 
rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing. The ancient Greeks 
considered snakes sacred to Asclepius, the god of medicine. He carried a 
caduceus, a staff with one or two serpents wrapped around it, which has become 
the symbol of modern physicians.

For both the Greeks and the Egyptians, the snake represented eternity. 
Ouroboros, the Greek symbol of eternity, consisted of a snake curled into a 
circle or hoop, biting its own tail. The Ouroboros grew out of the belief that 
serpents eat themselves and are reborn from themselves in an endless cycle of 
destruction and creation.

Serpents figured prominently in archaic Greek myths. According to some 
sources,
Ophion (“serpent”, a.k.a. Ophioneus), ruled the world with Eurynome 
before the two of them were cast down by Cronus and Rhea. The oracles of the 
Ancient Greeks were said to have been the continuation of the tradition begun 
with the worship of the Egyptian cobra goddess,
Wadjet.

The
Minoan

Snake 
Goddess brandished a serpent in either hand, perhaps evoking her role 
as source of wisdom, rather than her role as Mistress of the Animals (Potnia 
theron), with a leopard
under each arm. She is a Minoan version 
of the Canaanite
fertility goddess
Asherah. 
It is not by accident that later the infant
Heracles, 
a liminal hero on the threshold between the old ways and the new Olympian world, 
also brandished the two serpents that “threatened” him in his cradle. Classical 
Greeks did not perceive that the threat was merely the threat of wisdom. But the 
gesture is the same as that of the Cretan goddess.

Typhon 
the enemy of the Olympian gods is described as a vast grisly monster with a 
hundred heads and a hundred serpents issuing from his thighs, who was conquered 
and cast into Tartarus
by
Zeus, 
or confined beneath volcanic regions, where he is the cause of eruptions. Typhon 
is thus the chthonic figuration of volcanic forces. Amongst his children by 
Echidna are Cerberus
(a monstrous three-headed dog with a 
snake for a tail and a serpentine mane), the serpent tailed
Chimaera
, the serpent-like chthonic water beast

Lernaean Hydra and the hundred-headed serpentine dragon
Ladon. 
Both the Lernaean Hydra and Ladon were slain by
Heracles.

Python
was the earth-dragon of
Delphi, 
she always was represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. 
Pytho was the chthonic enemy of Apollo
, who slew her and remade her former home 
his own oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece.

Amphisbaena a Greek word, from amphis, meaning “both ways”, and 
bainein, meaning “to go”, also called the “Mother of Ants”, is a mythological, 
ant-eating serpent with a head at each end. According to Greek mythology, the 
mythological amphisbaena was spawned from the blood that dripped from
Medusa 
the Gorgon‘s 
head as
Perseus flew over the Libyan Desert with her head in his hand.

Medusa and the other Gorgons were vicious female monsters with sharp fangs 
and hair of living, venomous snakes whose origins predate the written myths of 
Greece and who were the protectors of the most ancient ritual secrets. The 
Gorgons wore a belt of two intertwined serpents in the same configuration of the
caduceus. 
The Gorgon was placed at the highest point and central of the relief on the
Parthenon.

Asclepius, the son of Apollo and Koronis, learned the secrets of 
keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another (which 
Asclepius himself had fatally wounded) healing herbs. To prevent the entire 
human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius’s care, Zeus killed him with a 
bolt of lightning. Asclepius’ death at the hands of Zeus illustrates man’s 
inability to challenge the natural order that separates mortal men from the 
gods. In honor of Asclepius, snakes were often used in healing rituals. 
Non-poisonous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the 
sick and injured slept. In
The Library
,

Apollodorus claimed that
Athena 
gave Asclepius a vial of blood from the Gorgons. Gorgon blood had magical 
properties: if taken from the left side of the Gorgon, it was a fatal poison; 
from the right side, the blood was capable of bringing the dead back to life. 
However
Euripides wrote in his tragedy
Ion
that the Athenian queen Creusa had 
inherited this vial from her ancestor Erichthonios, who was a snake himself and 
receiving the vial from Athena. In this version the blood of Medusa had the 
healing power while the lethal poison originated from Medusa’s serpents.

Laocoön 
was allegedly a priest of Poseidon
(or of Apollo, by some accounts) at
Troy; 
he was famous for warning the Trojans in vain against accepting the Trojan Horse 
from the Greeks, and for his subsequent divine execution. Poseidon (some say
Athena), 
who was supporting the Greeks, subsequently sent sea-serpents to strangle 
Laocoön and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus. Another tradition states 
that Apollo sent the serpents for an unrelated offense, and only unlucky timing 
caused the Trojans to misinterpret them as punishment for striking the Horse.

Olympias, the mother of
Alexander the Great
and a princess of the 
primitive land of
Epirus
, had the reputation of a snake-handler, 
and it was in serpent form that Zeus was said to have fathered Alexander upon 
her; tame snakes were still to be found at Macedonian
Pella
in the 2nd century AD (Lucian,
Alexander the false prophet
) and at
Ostia
a bas-relief shows paired coiled serpents 
flanking a dressed altar, symbols or embodiments of the
Lares 
of the household, worthy of veneration (Veyne 1987 illus p 211).

Aeetes
, the king of
Colchis 
and father of the sorceress Medea
, possessed the

Golden Fleece. He guarded it with a massive serpent that never slept. 
Medea, who had fallen in love with Jason
of the
Argonauts, 
enchanted it to sleep so Jason could seize the Fleece.

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

 

Antoninus Pius
, Marcus Aurelius’ 
adoptive father and predecessor as emperor (Glyptothek).

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.

//

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.

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.

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

). 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, 

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

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

, 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.