CLAUDIUS II Gothicus Ancient Roman Coin Nude Sol Sun God w globe i29600

Item: i29600

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Claudius II Gothicus – Roman Emperor: 268-270 A.D.

Bronze Antoninianus 21mm (3.22 grams) Rome mint circa 268-270 A.D.

Reference: RIC 16f, C 16
IMPCLAVDIVSAVG – Radiate, cuirassed bust right.
AETERNITAVG – Sol standing left, raising hand and holding globe,
III in right field.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

Royal/Imperial
symbols of power

Ruling dynasties often exploit pomp and ceremony with the use of
regalia
:
crowns
,

robes,
orb (globe) and sceptres
, some of which are reflections
of formerly practical objects. The use of language mechanisms also support this
differentiation with subjects talking of “the crown” and/or of “the
throne
” rather than referring directly to
personal names and items.

Monarchies
provide the most explicit
demonstration of tools to strengthen the elevation of leaders. Thrones sit high
on daises
leading to subjects lifting their gaze
(if they have permission) to contemplate the ruler. Architecture in general can
set leaders apart: note the symbolism inherent in the very name of the Chinese
imperial
Forbidden City
.

Sol Invictus (“Unconquered Sun”) was the official
sun god
of the later
Roman Empire
and a patron of soldiers. In 274
the Roman emperor

Aurelian
made it an official

cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree whether
the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient
Latin
cult of
Sol
,
a revival of the cult of
Elagabalus
or completely new.The god was
favored by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on their coins until
Constantine
.The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to 387 AD
and there were enough devotees in the 5th century that
Augustine
found it necessary to preach against
them.
It is commonly claimed that the date of 25 December for
Christmas
was selected in order to correspond
with the Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or “Birthday of
the Unconquered Sun”, but this view is challenged

Invictus as
epithet

Invictus
(“Unconquered, Invincible”) was an
epithet
for
several deities
of
classical Roman religion
, including the supreme
deity
Jupiter
, the war god
Mars
,
Hercules
,
Apollo
and
Silvanus
.^[8]
Invictus was in use from the 3rd century BC,
and was well-established as a
cult
title when applied to
Mithras
from the 2nd century onwards. It has a
clear association^[vague]
with solar deities and solar monism; as such, it became the preferred epithet of
Rome’s traditional
Sol
and the novel, short-lived Roman state cult
to
Elagabalus
, an
Emesan
solar deity who headed Rome’s official
pantheon under his
namesake emperor
.

The earliest dated use of Sol invictus is in a dedication from Rome,
AD 158.
Another, stylistically dated to the 2nd century AD, is inscribed on a Roman
phalera
: “inventori lucis soli invicto
augusto” (to the contriver of light, sol invictus augustus ).
Here “augustus” is most likely a further epithet of Sol as “august” (an elevated
being, divine or close to divinity), though the association of Sol with the
Imperial house would have been unmistakable and was already established in
iconography and stoic monism.
These are the earliest attested examples of Sol as invictus, but in AD
102 a certain Anicetus
restored a shrine of Sol; Hijmans
(2009, 486, n. 22) is tempted “to link Anicetus’ predilection for Sol with his
name, the
Latinized
form of the Greek word ἀνίκητος,
which means invictus“.

Elagabalus

The first sun god consistently termed invictus was the
provincial Syrian
god
Elagabalus
. According to the
Historia Augusta
, the
teenaged Severan heir
adopted the name of his
deity and brought his cult image from Emesa to Rome. Once installed as emperor,
he neglected Rome’s traditional State deities and promoted his own as Rome’s
most powerful deity. This ended with his murder in 222.

The Historia Augusta refers to the deity Elagabalus as “also called
Jupiter and Sol” (fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis).This has been seen as an abortive attempt to impose the Syrian sun god on
Rome;
but because it is now clear that the Roman cult of Sol remained firmly
established in Rome throughout the Roman period,this Syrian
Sol Elagabalus
has become no more relevant to
our understanding of the Roman
Sol
than, for example, the Syrian
Jupiter Dolichenus
is for our understanding of
the Roman Jupiter.

 

Sol Invictus

Aurelian

The Roman gens
Aurelian was associated with the cult
of Sol.
After his victories in the East, the Emperor
Aurelian
thoroughly reformed the Roman cult of
Sol, elevating the sun-god to one of the premier divinities of the Empire. Where
previously priests of Sol had been simply
sacerdotes
and tended to belong to lower
ranks of Roman society,
they were now pontifices and members of the new
college of pontifices
instituted by
Aurelian.
Every pontifex of Sol was a member of the senatorial elite, indicating
that the
priesthood of Sol was now highly prestigious. Almost all these senators
held
other priesthoods as well, however, and some of these other priesthoods
take
precedence in the inscriptions in which they are listed, suggesting that
they
were considered more prestigious than the priesthood of Sol.Aurelian
also built a new temple for Sol, bringing the total number of temples
for the god in Rome to (at least) four^[21]
He also instituted games in honor of the sun god, held every four years from AD
274 onwards.

The identity of Aurelian’s Sol Invictus has long been a subject of scholarly
debate. Based on the
Historia Augusta
, some scholars have argued
that it was based on
Sol Elagablus
(or Elagabla) of
Emesa
. Others, basing their argument on
Zosimus
, suggest that it was based on the
Helios
, the solar god of
Palmyra
on the grounds that Aurelian placed and
consecrated a cult statue of Helios looted from Palmyra in the temple of Sol
Invictus. Professor Gary Forsythe discusses these arguments and add a third more
recent one based on the work of Steven Hijmans. Hijmans argues that Aurelian’s
solar deity was simply the traditional Greco-Roman Sol Invictus.

Constantine

Emperors portrayed Sol Invictus on their official coinage, with a wide range
of legends, only a few of which incorporated the epithet invictus, such
as the legend SOLI INVICTO COMITI, claiming the Unconquered Sun
as a companion to the Emperor, used with particular frequency by Constantine.
Statuettes of Sol Invictus, carried by the standard-bearers, appear in three
places in reliefs on the
Arch of Constantine
. Constantine’s official
coinage continues to bear images of Sol until 325/6. A
solidus
of Constantine as well as a gold
medallion from his reign depict the Emperor’s bust in profile twinned (“jugate”)
with Sol Invictus, with the legend INVICTUS CONSTANTINUS

Constantine decreed (March 7, 321) dies Solis—day of the sun, “Sunday“—as
the Roman day of rest [CJ3.12.2]:

On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing
in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however
persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their
pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for
grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such
operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

Constantine’s triumphal arch was carefully positioned to align with the
colossal statue of Sol
by the
Colosseum
, so that Sol formed the dominant
backdrop when seen from the direction of the main approach towards the arch.^[26]

Sol and the
other Roman Emperors

Berrens
deals with coin-evidence of Imperial connection to the Solar cult. Sol is
depicted sporadically on imperial coins in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, then
more frequently from
Septimius Severus
onwards until AD 325/6.
Sol invictus appears on coin legends from AD 261, well before the reign of
Aurelian.
Connections between the imperial radiate crown and the cult of Sol are
postulated. Augustus
was posthumously depicted with radiate
crown, as were living emperors from

Nero (after AD 65) to
Constantine
. Some modern scholarship interprets
the imperial radiate crown as a divine, solar association rather than an overt
symbol of Sol; Bergmann calls it a pseudo-object designed to disguise the divine
and solar connotations that would otherwise be politically controversial
 but there is broad agreement that coin-images showing the imperial radiate crown
are stylistically distinct from those of the solar crown of rays; the imperial
radiate crown is depicted as a real object rather than as symbolic light.
Hijmans argues that the Imperial radiate crown represents the honorary wreath
awarded to Augustus
, perhaps posthumously, to commemorate
his victory at the
battle of Actium
; he points out that
henceforth, living emperors were depicted with radiate crowns, but state divi
were not. To Hijmans this implies the radiate crown of living emperors as a link
to Augustus. His successors automatically inherited (or sometimes acquired) the
same offices and honours due to Octavian as “saviour of the Republic” through
his victory at Actium, piously attributed to Apollo-Helios. Wreaths awarded to
victors at the Actian Games were radiate.

Sol
Invictus and Christianity and Judaism

Mosaic of Christ as
Sol
or
Apollo-Helios
in Mausoleum M in the
pre-4th-century necropolis beneath^[33]
St. Peter’s in the Vatican
, which
many interpret as representing Christ

The
Philocalian calendar
of AD 354 gives a festival
of “Natalis Invicti” on 25 December. There is limited evidence that this
festival was celebrated before the mid-4th century.
The idea that Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December
because this was the date of an already existing festival of the Sol Invictus
was expressed in an annotation to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian
bishop
Jacob Bar-Salibi
. The scribe who added it
wrote: “It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the
birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In
these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when
the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this
festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be
solemnised on that day.”

This idea became popular especially in the 18th and 19th centuries
 and is still widely accepted.

In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, this view
has been seriously challenged
 by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas
was fixed at nine months after 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox, on
which the
Annunciation
was celebrated.
 The Jewish calendar date of 14 Nisan was believed to be that of the beginning of
creation, as well as of the Exodus and so of Passover, and Christians held that
the new creation, both the death of Jesus and the beginning of his human life,
occurred on the same date, which some put at 25 March in the Julian calendar.^[40][42][43]
It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years,
without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on 25
March, as he died on 25 March, which was calculated to have coincided with 14
Nisan.^[44]
Sextus Julius Africanus
(c.160 – c.240) gave 25
March as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus.
 The tractate De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini
nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae falsely attributed to
John Chrysostom
also argued that Jesus was
conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as 25
March.
A passage of the Commentary on the prophet Daniel by
Hippolytus of Rome
, written in about 204, has
also been appealed to.

Among those who have put forward this view are Louis Duchesne,Thomas J. Talley,
David J. Rothenberg,
J. Neil Alexander, and Hugh Wybrew.

Not all scholars who view the celebration of the birth of Jesus on 25
December as motivated by the choice of the winter solstice rather than
calculated on the basis of the belief that he was conceived and died on 25 March
agree that it constituted a deliberate Christianization of a festival of the
Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. Michael Alan Anderson writes:

Both the sun and Christ were said to be born anew on December 25. But
while the solar associations with the birth of Christ created powerful
metaphors, the surviving evidence does not support such a direct association
with the Roman solar festivals. The earliest documentary evidence for the
feast of Christmas makes no mention of the coincidence with the winter
solstice. Thomas Talley has shown that, although the Emperor Aurelian’s
dedication of a temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (C.E. 274)
probably took place on the ‘Birthday of the Invincible Sun’ on December 25,
the cult of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did not celebrate the winter
solstice nor any of the other quarter-tense days, as one might expect. The
origins of Christmas, then, may not be expressly rooted in the Roman
festival.

The same point is made by Hijmans: “It is cosmic symbolism…which inspired
the Church leadership in Rome to elect the southern solstice, December 25, as
the birthday of Christ … While they were aware that pagans called this day the
‘birthday’ of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any
role in their choice of date for Christmas.”
He also states that, “while the winter solstice on or around December 25 was
well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a
religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of
Christmas”.

The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought also remarks on the
uncertainty about the order of precedence between the celebrations of the
Birthday of the Unconquered Sun and the birthday of Jesus: “This ‘calculations’
hypothesis potentially establishes 25 December as a Christian festival before
Aurelian’s decree, which, when promulgated, might have provided for the
Christian feast both opportunity and challenge.”

Susan K. Roll also calls “most extreme” the unproven hypothesis that “would
call Christmas point-blank a ‘christianization’ of Natalis Solis Invicti, a
direct conscious appropriation of the pre-Christian feast, arbitrarily placed on
the same calendar date, assimilating and adapting some of its cosmic symbolism
and abruptly usurping any lingering habitual loyalty that newly-converted
Christians might feel to the feasts of the state gods”.
The comparison of Christ with the astronomical
Sun
is common in ancient Christian writings.
 In the 5th century,
Pope Leo I
(the Great) spoke in several sermons
on the Feast of the Nativity of how the celebration of Christ’s birth coincided
with increase of the sun’s position in the sky. An example is: “But this
Nativity which is to be adored in heaven and on earth is suggested to us by no
day more than this when, with the early light still shedding its rays on nature,
there is borne in upon our senses the brightness of this wondrous mystery.

Mosaic in the
Beth Alpha
synagogue, with the sun
in the centre, surrounded by the twelve zodiac constellations and
with the four seasons associated inaccurately with the
constellations

A study of
Augustine of Hippo
remarks that his exhortation
in a Christmas sermon, “Let us celebrate this day as a feast not for the sake of
this sun, which is beheld by believers as much as by ourselves, but for the sake
of him who created the sun”, shows that he was aware of the coincidence of the
celebration of Christmas and the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun, although this
pagan festival was celebrated at only a few places and was originally a
peculiarity of the Roman city calendar. It adds: “He also believes, however,
that there is a reliable tradition which gives 25 December as the actual date of
the birth of our Lord.”
By “the sun of righteousness” in
Malachi 4:2
“the
fathers
, from
Justin
downward, and nearly all the earlier
commentators understand Christ, who is supposed to be described as the
rising sun”.
 The New Testament
itself contains a hymn fragment:
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Clement of Alexandria
wrote of “the Sun of the
Resurrection, he who was born before the dawn, whose beams give light”.

Christians adopted the image of the Sun (Helios
or Sol Invictus) to represent Christ. In this portrayal he is a beardless figure
with a flowing cloak in a chariot drawn by four white horses, as in the mosaic
in Mausoleum M discovered under
Saint Peter’s Basilica
and in an
early-4th-century catacomb fresco.
 Clement of Alexandria had spoken of Christ driving his chariot in this way
across the sky.
The nimbus of the figure under Saint Peter’s Basilica is described by some as
rayed,
as in traditional pre-Christian representations, but another has said: “Only the
cross-shaped nimbus makes the Christian significance apparent” (emphasis
added).
Yet another has interpreted the figure as a representation of the sun with no
explicit religious reference whatever, pagan or Christian.

The traditional image of the sun is used also in Jewish art. A mosaic floor
in Hamat Tiberias
presents
David
as Helios surrounded by a ring with the
signs of the zodiac
.As well as in Hamat Tiberias, figures of Helios or Sol Invictus also appear in
several of the very few surviving schemes of decoration surviving from Late
Antique synagogues
, including
Beth Alpha
,
Husefah
(Husefa) and
Naaran
, all now in
Israel
. He is shown in floor mosaics, with the
usual radiate halo, and sometimes in a
quadriga
, in the central roundel of a circular
representation of the zodiac or the seasons. These combinations “may have
represented to an agricultural Jewish community the perpetuation of the annual
cycle of the universe or … the central part of a calendar”.

Marcus Aurelius Claudius (May

10, 213

– January, 270), often referred to as Claudius Gothicus or Claudius II,

was a Roman Emperor

. He ruled the

Roman

Empire
for less than two years (268 – 270), but during that brief time he

managed to obtain some successes. He was later given divine status.

//

 Life

 Origin

and rise to power

Claudius’ origin is uncertain. He was either from

Sirmium
(Syrmia;

in Pannonia

Inferior) or from Naissus

Dardania

(in

Moesia Superior

); both areas are located in

Serbia
.

Claudius was the commander of the Roman army that decisively defeated the

Goths
at the

Battle of Naissus

in September 268; in the same month, he attained the

throne, amid charges, never proven, that he murdered his predecessor

Gallienus
.

However, he soon proved to be less than bloodthirsty, as he asked the

Roman

Senate
to spare the lives of Gallienus’ family and supporters. He was less

magnanimous toward Rome’s enemies, however, and it was to this that he owed his

popularity.

Claudius, like

Maximinus Thrax

before him, was of barbarian birth. After an interlude of

failed aristocratic Roman emperors since Maximinus’s death, Claudius was the

first in a series of tough soldier-emperors who would eventually restore the

Empire from the

Crisis of the third century

.

 Claudius

as emperor

At the time of his accession, the Roman Empire was in serious danger from

several incursions, both within and outside its borders. The most pressing of

these was an invasion of Illyricum and

Pannonia
by

the Goths
. Not

long after being named emperor (or just prior to Gallienus’ death, depending on

the source), he won his greatest victory, and one of the greatest in the history

of Roman arms.

At the

Battle of Naissus

, Claudius and his legions routed a huge Gothic army.

Together with his cavalry commander, the future Emperor

Aurelian
,

the Romans took thousands of prisoners, destroyed the Gothic cavalry as a force

and stormed their laager (a circular alignment of wagons long favored by the

Goths). The victory earned Claudius his surname of “Gothicus” (conqueror of the

Goths), and that is how he is known to this day. More importantly, the Goths

were soon driven back across the

Danube River

, and a century passed before they again posed a serious threat

to the empire.

While this was going on, the Germanic tribe known as the

Alamanni

had crossed the Alps

and attacked the empire. Claudius responded quickly, routing the Alamanni at the

Battle of Lake Benacus

in the late fall of 268, a few months after the

battle of Naissus. He then turned on the

Gallic Empire

, ruled by a pretender for the past fifteen years and

encompassing

Britain

, Gaul
,

and the

Iberian Peninsula

. He won several victories and soon regained control of

Spain and the Rhone river valley of Gaul. This set the stage for the ultimate

destruction of the Gallic Empire under Aurelian.

However, Claudius did not live long enough to fulfill his goal of reuniting

all the lost territories of the empire. Late in 269 he was preparing to go to

war against the Vandals

, who were raiding in

Pannonia
.

However, he fell victim to the

Plague of Cyprian

(possibly

smallpox
),

and died early in January 270. Before his death, he is thought to have named

Aurelian as his successor, although Claudius’ brother

Quintillus

briefly seized power.

The Senate

immediately deified Claudius as “Divus Claudius Gothicus”.

 Links

to

Constantinian dynasty

The

reports Claudius and Quintillus having another brother

named Crispus and through him a niece. Said niece Claudia reportedly married

Eutropius and was mother to

Constantius Chlorus

. Historians however suspect this account to be a

genealogical

fabrication intended to link

Constantine I

‘s family to that of a well-respected emperor.