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Carinus –
Roman Emperor
: 283-285 A.D. –
Bronze Tetradrachm 20mm (5.87 grams) of
Alexandria
in
Egypt
Struck regnal year 2 of Carus, 283/284 A.D.
Reference: Dattari 5584; Geissen 3177
Α. Κ. Μ. A. ΚΑΡΙΝΟC
CЄB., Laureate and cuirassed bust
right.
Elpis standing left, holding flower and raising helm of skirt; LB (regnal year)
across fields.
You are bidding on the exact
item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
Guarantee of Authenticity.
In
Greek mythology
, Elpis (Ancient Greek:
ἐλπίς) was the personification and spirit
of hope
(hope was usually seen as an extension to
suffering by the Greek, not as a god), perhaps a child of
Nyx
and mother of
Pheme
, the goddess of fame, renown and rumor.
She was depicted as a young woman, usually carrying flowers or cornucopia in her
hands. In Hesiod
‘s
Works and Days
, Elpis was the last item in
Pandora
‘s box (or jar). Based on Hesiod’s
description, the debate is still alive to determine if Elpis was only hope,
or more generally expectation.
Her Roman equivalent was
Spes.
Elpis as described in Hesiod’s Works and Days
The more famous version of the Pandora myth comes from one of Hesiod’s poems,
Works and Days
. In this version of the myth
(lines 60–105), Hesiod expands upon her origin, and moreover widens the scope of
the misery she inflicts on mankind. Pandora brings with her a jar or, in most
stories, a box containing “burdensome toil and sickness that brings death to
men” (91–92), diseases (102) and “a myriad other pains” (100).
Prometheus
had (fearing further reprisals)
warned his brother
Epimetheus
not to accept any gifts from Zeus.
But Epimetheus did not listen; he accepted Pandora, who promptly scattered the
contents of her jar. As a result, Hesiod tells us, “the earth and sea are full
of evils” (101). One item, however, did not escape the jar (96–99), hope:
Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing
Zeus the Cloudgatherer.
Hesiod does not say why hope (elpis) remained in the jar. The
implications of Elpis remaining in the jar were the subject of intense debate
even in antiquity.
Hesiod closes with this moral (105): “Thus it is not possible to escape the
mind of Zeus.”
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),
an event still annually commemorated 17 hundred years later as a “day of
horror.”
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.
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.
Marcus
Aurelius Carinus (died 285) was
Roman
Emperor
(283 – July, 285) and elder son of the Emperor
Carus
, on whose
accession he was appointed governor of the western portion of the empire.
He fought with success against the
Quadi
tribes,
but soon left the defence of the Upper
Rhine
to his
legates and returned to Rome
, where he abandoned himself to all kinds of debauchery and excess. He
also celebrated the ludi Romani on a scale of unexampled magnificence.
After the death of Carus, the army in the East demanded to be led back to
Europe, and Numerian
, the younger son of Carus, was forced to comply.
During a halt at
Chalcedon
,
Numerian was found dead, and
Diocletian
,
commander of the body-guards, who had claimed that Numerian had been
assassinated, was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers.
Carinus at once left Rome and set out for the East to meet Diocletian. On his
way through Pannonia he put down the usurper
Sabinus Iulianus
, and encountered the army of Diocletian in
Moesia
.
Carinus was successful in several engagements, and at the
Battle of the Margus River
(Morava),
according to one account, the valour of his troops had gained the day, when he
was assassinated by a tribune whose wife he had seduced. In another account, the
battle is represented as having resulted in a complete victory for Diocletian,
for Carinus’ army deserted him: this second account is also confirmed by the
fact that Diocletian kept Carinus’ Praetorian Guard commander in service.
Carinus has the reputation of having been one of the worst of the emperors.
This infamy was possibly supported by Diocletian himself. For example,
Historia Augusta
has Carinus marrying nine wives, while neglecting to
mention his only real wife,
Magnia Urbica
, by whom he had an only son, Marcus Aurelius Nigrinianus.
After his death, Carinus’
memory was condemned
and his name, along with that of his wife, was erased
from inscriptions.
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