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Commodus (Latin:
Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus;
31 August, 161 AD – 31 December, 192 AD), was
Roman Emperor
from 180 to 192. He also ruled as
co-emperor with his father
Marcus Aurelius
from 177 until his father’s
death in 180.
His accession as emperor was the first time a son had succeeded his father
since Titus
succeeded
Vespasian
in 79. He was also the first Emperor
to have both a father and grandfather as the two preceding Emperors. Commodus
was the first (and until 337 the only) emperor “born
in the purple“; i.e. during his father’s reign.
Commodus was assassinated in 192.
Early life and rise to power (161–180)
Early life
Commodus was born on 31 August 161, as Commodus, in
Lanuvium
, near
Rome
. He was the son of the reigning emperor,
Marcus Aurelius, and Aurelius’s first cousin, Faustina the Younger; the youngest
daughter of
Roman Emperor
Antonius Pius
. Commodus had an elder twin
brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, who died in 165. On 12 October 166,
Commodus was made
Caesar
together with his younger brother,
Marcus Annius Verus
. The latter died in 169
having failed to recover from an operation, which left Commodus as Marcus
Aurelius’ sole surviving son.
He was looked after by his father’s physician,
Galen
, in order to keep Commodus healthy and
alive. Galen treated many of Commodus’ common illnesses. Commodus received
extensive tuition at the hands of what Marcus Aurelius called “an abundance of
good masters.” The focus of Commodus’ education appears to have been
intellectual, possibly at the expense of military training.
Commodus is known to have been at
Carnuntum
, the headquarters of Marcus Aurelius
during the
Marcomannic Wars
, in 172. It was presumably
there that, on 15 October 172, he was given the victory title Germanicus,
in the presence of the
army
. The title suggests that Commodus was
present at his father’s victory over the
Marcomanni
. On 20 January 175, Commodus entered
the
College of Pontiffs
, the starting point of a
career in public life.
In April 175,
Avidius Cassius
, Governor of
Syria
, declared himself Emperor following
rumors that Marcus Aurelius had died. Having been accepted as Emperor by Syria,
Palestine
and
Egypt
, Cassius carried on his rebellion even
after it had become obvious that Marcus was still alive. During the preparations
for the campaign against Cassius, the Prince assumed his
toga virilis
on the
Danubian
front on 7 July 175, thus formally
entering
adulthood
. Cassius, however, was killed by one
of his centurions
before the campaign against him
could begin.
Commodus subsequently accompanied his father on a lengthy trip to the Eastern
provinces, during which he visited
Antioch
. The Emperor and his son then traveled
to Athens
, where they were initiated into the
Eleusinian mysteries
. They then returned to
Rome in the Autumn
of 176.
Joint rule
with father (177)
Marcus Aurelius was the first emperor since
Vespasian
to have a biological son of his own
and, though he himself was the fifth in the line of the so-called
Five Good Emperors
, each of whom had adopted
his successor, it seems to have been his firm intention that Commodus should be
his heir. On 27 November 176, Marcus Aurelius granted Commodus the rank of
Imperator
and, in the middle of 177, the
title
Augustus
, giving his son the same status as
his own and formally sharing power.
On 23 December of the same year, the two Augusti celebrated a joint
triumph
, and Commodus was given
tribunician
power. On 1 January 177, Commodus
became consul
for the first time, which made him, aged
15, the youngest consul in Roman history up to that time. He subsequently
married
Bruttia Crispina
before accompanying his father
to the Danubian front once more in 178, where Marcus Aurelius died on 17 March
180, leaving the 18-year-old Commodus sole emperor.
Sole reign
(180–192)
Upon his accession Commodus devalued the
Roman currency
. He reduced the weight of the
denarius
from 96 per
Roman pound
to 105 (3.85 grams to 3.35 grams).
He also reduced the silver purity from 79 percent to 76 percent – the silver
weight dropping from 2.57 grams to 2.34 grams. In 186 he further reduced the
purity and silver weight to 74 percent and 2.22 grams respectively, being 108 to
the Roman pound.
His reduction of the denarius during his rule was the largest since the empire’s
first devaluation during
Nero‘s reign.
Whereas the reign of
Marcus Aurelius
had been marked by almost
continuous warfare, that of Commodus was comparatively peaceful in the military
sense but was marked by political strife and the increasingly arbitrary and
capricious behaviour of the emperor himself. In the view of
Dio Cassius
, a contemporary observer, his
accession marked the descent “from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron” –
a famous comment which has led some historians, notably
Edward Gibbon
, to take Commodus’s reign as the
beginning of the
decline of the Roman Empire
.
Despite his notoriety, and considering the importance of his reign,
Commodus’s years in power are not well chronicled. The principal surviving
literary sources are Dio Cassius (a contemporary and sometimes first-hand
observer, but for this reign, only transmitted in fragments and abbreviations),
Herodian
and the
Historia Augusta
(untrustworthy for its
character as a work of literature rather than history, with elements of fiction
embedded within its biographies; in the case of Commodus, it may well be
embroidering upon what the author found in reasonably good contemporary
sources).
Commodus remained with the Danube armies for only a short time before
negotiating a peace treaty with the Danubian tribes. He then returned to Rome
and celebrated a triumph for the conclusion of the wars on 22 October 180.
Unlike the preceding Emperors
Trajan
,
Hadrian
,
Antoninus Pius
and Marcus Aurelius, he seems to
have had little interest in the business of administration and tended throughout
his reign to leave the practical running of the state to a succession of
favourites, beginning with
Saoterus
, a freedman from
Nicomedia
who had become his
chamberlain
.
Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs would lead to a series of
conspiracies and attempted coups, which in turn eventually provoked Commodus to
take charge of affairs, which he did in an increasingly dictatorial manner.
Nevertheless, though the
senatorial order
came to hate and fear him, the
evidence suggests that he remained popular with the army and the common people
for much of his reign, not least because of his lavish shows of largesse
(recorded on his coinage) and because he staged and took part in spectacular
gladiatorial
combats.
One of the ways he paid for his donatives and mass entertainments was to tax
the senatorial order, and on many inscriptions, the traditional order of the two
nominal powers of the state, the Senate and People (Senatus Populusque
Romanus) is provocatively reversed (Populus Senatusque…).
The conspiracies of
182
Museum, Cologne).
At the outset of his reign, Commodus, age 18, inherited many of his father’s
senior advisers, notably
Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus
(the second
husband of Commodus’s sister
Lucilla
), his father-in-law
Gaius Bruttius Praesens
, Titus Fundanius
Vitrasius Pollio, and
Aufidius Victorinus
, who was
Prefect of the City of Rome
. He also had five
surviving sisters, all of them with husbands who were potential rivals. Four of
his sisters were considerably older than he; the eldest, Lucilla, held the rank
of
Augusta
as the widow of her first husband,
Lucius Verus
.
The first crisis of the reign came in 182, when Lucilla engineered a
conspiracy against her brother. Her motive is alleged to have been envy of the
Empress
Crispina. Her husband, Pompeianus, was
not involved, but two men alleged to have been her lovers,
Marcus Ummidius Quadratus Annianus
(the consul
of 167, who was also her first cousin) and
Appius Claudius Quintianus
, attempted to murder
Commodus as he entered the theatre. They bungled the job and were seized by the
emperor’s bodyguard.
Quadratus and Quintianus were executed. Lucilla was exiled to
Capri
and later killed. Pompeianus retired from
public life. One of the two
praetorian prefects
,
Tarrutenius Paternus
, had actually been
involved in the conspiracy but was not detected at this time, and in the
aftermath, he and his colleague
Sextus Tigidius Perennis
were able to arrange
for the murder of Saoterus, the hated chamberlain.
Commodus took the loss of Saoterus badly, and Perennis now seized the chance
to advance himself by implicating Paternus in a second conspiracy, one
apparently led by
Publius Salvius Julianus
, who was the son of
the jurist
Salvius Julianus
and was betrothed to
Paternus’s daughter. Salvius and Paternus were executed along with a number of
other prominent consulars and senators.
Didius Julianus
, the future emperor, a relative
of Salvius Julianus, was dismissed from the governorship of
Germania Inferior
.
Cleander
Perennis took over the reins of government and Commodus found a new
chamberlain and favourite in
Cleander
, a
Phrygian
freedman
who had married one of the emperor’s
mistresses, Demostratia. Cleander was in fact the person who had murdered
Saoterus. After those attempts on his life, Commodus spent much of his time
outside Rome, mostly on the family estates at Lanuvium. Being physically strong,
his chief interest was in sport: taking part in
horse racing
,
chariot racing
, and combats with beasts and
men, mostly in private but also on occasion in public.
Dacia and Britain
Museum, Vienna). According to
Herodian
he was well proportioned
and attractive, with naturally blonde and curly hair.
Commodus was inaugurated in 183 as consul with Aufidius Victorinus for a
colleague and assumed the title
Pius. War broke out in
Dacia
: few details are available, but it
appears two future contenders for the throne,
Clodius Albinus
and
Pescennius Niger
, both distinguished themselves
in the campaign. Also, in
Britain
in 184, the governor
Ulpius Marcellus
re-advanced the Roman frontier
northward to the
Antonine Wall
, but the
legionaries
revolted against his harsh
discipline and acclaimed another legate, Priscus, as emperor.
Priscus refused to accept their acclamations, but Perennis had all the
legionary legates
in Britain
cashiered
. On 15 October 184 at the
Capitoline Games
, a
Cynic
philosopher publicly denounced Perennis
before Commodus, who was watching, but was immediately put to death. According
to Dio Cassius, Perennis, though ruthless and ambitious, was not personally
corrupt and generally administered the state well.
However, the following year, a detachment of soldiers from Britain (they had
been drafted to
Italy
to suppress brigands) also denounced
Perennis to the emperor as plotting to make his own son emperor (they had been
enabled to do so by Cleander, who was seeking to dispose of his rival), and
Commodus gave them permission to execute him as well as his wife and sons. The
fall of Perennis brought a new spate of executions: Aufidius Victorinus
committed suicide. Ulpius Marcellus was replaced as
governor of Britain
by
Pertinax
; brought to Rome and tried for
treason, Marcellus narrowly escaped death.
Cleander’s zenith and fall (185–190)
Cleander proceeded to concentrate power in his own hands and to enrich
himself by becoming responsible for all public offices: he sold and bestowed
entry to the Senate, army commands,
governorships
and, increasingly, even the
suffect consulships
to the highest bidder.
Unrest around the empire increased, with large numbers of army deserters causing
trouble in Gaul
and
Germany
. Pescennius Niger mopped up the
deserters in Gaul in a military campaign, and a revolt in
Brittany
was put down by two
legions
brought over from Britain.
In 187, one of the leaders of the deserters, Maternus, came from Gaul
intending to assassinate Commodus at the Festival of the Great Goddess in March,
but he was betrayed and executed. In the same year,
Pertinax
unmasked a conspiracy by two enemies
of Cleander – Antistius Burrus (one of Commodus’s brothers-in-law) and Arrius
Antoninus. As a result, Commodus appeared even more rarely in public, preferring
to live on his estates.
Early in 188, Cleander disposed of the current praetorian prefect,
Atilius Aebutianus
, and himself took over
supreme command of the Praetorians at the new rank of a pugione
(“dagger-bearer”) with two praetorian prefects subordinate to him. Now at the
zenith of his power, Cleander continued to sell public offices as his private
business. The climax came in the year 190, which had 25 suffect consuls – a
record in the 1000-year history of the Roman consulship—all appointed by
Cleander (they included the future Emperor
Septimius Severus
).
In the spring of 190, Rome was afflicted by a food shortage, for which the
praefectus annonae
Papirius Dionysius
, the official actually in
charge of the
grain supply
, contrived to lay the blame on
Cleander. At the end of June, a mob demonstrated against Cleander during a horse
race in the
Circus Maximus
: he sent the praetorian guard to
put down the disturbances, but Pertinax, who was now City Prefect of Rome,
dispatched the
Vigiles Urbani
to oppose them. Cleander
fled to Commodus, who was at
Laurentum
in the house of the
Quinctilii
, for protection, but the mob
followed him calling for his head.
At the urging of his mistress
Marcia
, Commodus had Cleander beheaded and his
son killed. Other victims at this time were the praetorian prefect Julius
Julianus, Commodus’s cousin
Annia Fundania Faustina
, and his brother-in-law
Mamertinus. Papirius Dionysius was executed too.
The emperor now changed his name to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus. At 29,
he took over more of the reins of power, though he continued to rule through a
cabal consisting of Marcia, his new chamberlain Eclectus, and the new praetorian
prefect
Quintus Aemilius Laetus
, who about this time
also had many Christians freed from working in the mines in
Sardinia
. Marcia, the widow of Quadratus, who
had been executed in 182, is alleged to have been a Christian.
Megalomania
(190–192)
In opposition to the Senate, in his pronouncements and
iconography
, Commodus had always laid stress on
his unique status as a source of god-like power, liberality and physical
prowess. Innumerable statues around the empire were set up portraying him in the
guise of Hercules
, reinforcing the image of him as a
demigod, a physical giant, a protector and a battler against beasts and men (see
“Commodus and Hercules” and “Commodus the Gladiator” below). Moreover, as
Hercules, he could claim to be the son of
Jupiter
, the representative of the supreme god
of the Roman
pantheon
. These tendencies now increased to
megalomaniac
proportions. Far from celebrating
his descent from Marcus Aurelius, the actual source of his power, he stressed
his own personal uniqueness as the bringer of a new order, seeking to re-cast
the empire in his own image.
During 191, the city of Rome was extensively damaged by a fire that raged for
several days, during which many public buildings including the
Temple of Pax
, the
Temple of Vesta
and parts of the imperial
palace were destroyed.
Perhaps seeing this as an opportunity, early in 192 Commodus, declaring
himself the new
Romulus
, ritually re-founded Rome, renaming the
city Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana. All the months of the year were
renamed to correspond exactly with his (now twelve) names: Lucius,
Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus,
Romanus, Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus,
Felix, Pius. The legions were renamed Commodianae, the fleet
which imported grain from
Africa
was termed Alexandria Commodiana
Togata, the Senate was entitled the Commodian Fortunate Senate, his palace
and the Roman people themselves were all given the name Commodianus, and
the day on which these reforms were decreed was to be called Dies Commodianus.
Thus he presented himself as the fountainhead of the Empire and Roman life
and religion. He also had the head of the
Colossus of Nero
adjacent to the
Colosseum
replaced with his own portrait, gave
it a club and placed a
bronze
lion at its feet to make it look like Hercules, and added an
inscription boasting of being “the only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve
times one thousand men”.
Character and
physical prowess
Character and
motivations
Dio Cassius, a first-hand witness, describes him as “not naturally wicked
but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great
simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his
companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed
the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon
became second nature.”[8]
His recorded actions do tend to show a rejection of his father’s policies,
his father’s advisers, and especially his father’s austere lifestyle, and an
alienation from the surviving members of his family. It seems likely that he was
brought up in an atmosphere of
Stoic
asceticism
, which he rejected entirely upon his
accession to sole rule. After repeated attempts on Commodus’ life,
Roman citizens
were often killed for raising
his ire. One such notable event was the attempted extermination of the house of
the Quinctilii. Condianus and Maximus were executed on the pretext that, while
they were not implicated in any plots, their wealth and talent would make them
unhappy with the current state of affairs.
Changes of name
On his accession as sole ruler, Commodus added the name Antoninus to his
official nomenclature. In October 180 he changed his
praenomen
from Lucius to Marcus, presumably
in honour of his father. He later took the title of Felix in 185. In 191
he restored his praenomen to Lucius and added the family name Aelius,
apparently linking himself to Hadrian and Hadrian’s adopted son
Lucius Aelius Caesar
, whose original name was
also Commodus.
Later that year he dropped Antoninus and adopted as his full style Lucius
Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius
Invictus Felix Pius (the order of some of these titles varies in the sources). “Exsuperatorius”
(the supreme) was a title given to Jupiter, and “Amazonius” identified him again
with Hercules.
An inscribed altar from
Dura-Europos
on the Euphrates shows that
Commodus’s titles and the renaming of the months were disseminated to the
furthest reaches of the Empire; moreover, that even auxiliary military units
received the title Commodiana, and that Commodus claimed two additional titles:
Pacator Orbis (pacifier of the world) and Dominus Noster (Our
Lord). The latter eventually would be used as a conventional title by Roman
emperors, starting about a century later, but Commodus seems to have been the
first to assume it.
Commodus and Hercules
Disdaining the more philosophic inclinations of his father, Commodus was
extremely proud of his physical prowess. He was generally acknowledged to be
extremely handsome. As mentioned above, he ordered many statues to be made
showing him dressed as Hercules with a lion’s hide and a club. He thought of
himself as the reincarnation of Hercules, frequently emulating the legendary
hero’s feats by appearing in the arena to fight a variety of wild animals. He
was left-handed, and very proud of the fact. Cassius Dio and the writers of the
Augustan History
say that Commodus was a
skilled archer, who could shoot the heads off
ostriches
in full gallop, and kill a
panther
as it attacked a victim in the arena.
Commodus the gladiator
Commodus also had a passion for gladiatorial combat, which he took so far as
to take to the arena
himself, dressed as a gladiator. The
Romans found Commodus’s naked gladiatorial combats to be scandalous and
disgraceful.
It was rumoured that he was actually the son, not of Marcus Aurelius, but of a
gladiator whom his mother Faustina had taken as a lover at the coastal resort of
Caieta
.
In the arena, Commodus always won since his opponents always submitted to the
emperor. Thus, these public fights would not end in death. Privately, it was his
custom to slay his practice opponents.
For each appearance in the arena, he charged the city of Rome a million
sesterces
, straining the Roman economy.
Commodus raised the ire of many military officials in Rome for his Hercules
persona in the arena. Often, wounded soldiers and amputees would be placed in
the arena for Commodus to slay with a sword. Commodus’s eccentric behaviour
would not stop there. Citizens of Rome missing their feet through accident or
illness were taken to the arena, where they were tethered together for Commodus
to club to death while pretending they were giants.
These acts may have contributed to his assassination.
Commodus was also known for fighting exotic animals in the arena, often to
the horror of the Roman people. According to Gibbon, Commodus once killed 100
lions in a single day.
Later, he decapitated a running ostrich with a specially designed dart
and afterwards carried the bleeding head of the dead bird and his sword over to
the section where the Senators sat and gesticulated as though they were next.
On another occasion, Commodus killed three
elephants
on the floor of the arena by himself.
Finally, Commodus killed a
giraffe
, which was considered to be a strange
and helpless beast.
Assassination (192)
In November 192 Commodus held Plebian Games, in which he shot hundreds of
animals with arrows and javelins every morning, and fought as a gladiator every
afternoon, winning all the bouts. In December he announced his intention to
inaugurate the year 193 as both consul and gladiator on 1 January.
At this point, the prefect Laetus formed a conspiracy with Eclectus to
supplant Commodus with Pertinax, taking Marcia into their confidence. On 31
December Marcia poisoned his food but he vomited up the poison; so the
conspirators sent his wrestling partner
Narcissus
to strangle him in his bath. Upon his
death, the Senate declared him a public enemy (a de facto
damnatio memoriae
) and restored the
original name to the city of Rome and its institutions. Commodus’s statues were
thrown down. His body was buried in the
Mausoleum of Hadrian
. In 195 the emperor
Septimius Severus
, trying to gain favour with
the family of Marcus Aurelius, rehabilitated Commodus’s memory and had the
Senate deify him.
Commodus was succeeded by
Pertinax
, whose reign was short lived, being
the first to fall victim to the
Year of the Five Emperors
. Commodus’s death
marked the end of the
Nervan-Antonian dynasty
.
Head of a genius worshipped by Roman soldiers (found at
Vindobona
, 2nd century CE)
In
ancient Roman religion
, the genius was
the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every
individual person, place, or thing.
Winged genius facing a woman with a tambourine and mirror, from
southern Italy, about 320 BC.
Nature of the genius
The rational powers and abilities of every human being were attributed to
their soul, which was a genius. Each individual place had a genius
(genius
loci) and so did powerful objects, such as volcanoes. The concept
extended to some specifics: the genius of the theatre, of vineyards, and of
festivals, which made performances successful, grapes grow, and celebrations
succeed, respectively. It was extremely important in the Roman mind to
propitiate the appropriate genii for the major undertakings and events of their
lives.
Specific genii
Bronze genius depicted as
pater familias
(1st century CE)
Although the term genius might apply to any divinity whatsoever, most
of the higher-level and state genii had their own well-established names.
Genius applied most often to individual places or people not generally
known; that is, to the smallest units of society and settlements, families and
their homes. Houses, doors, gates, streets, districts, tribes, each one had its
own genius.The supreme hierarchy of the Roman gods, like that of the Greeks, was modelled
after a human family. It featured a father,
Jupiter
(“father god”), who, in a
patriarchal society
was also the supreme divine
unity, and a mother,
Juno
, queen of the gods. These supreme
unities were subdivided into genii for each individual family; hence, the
genius of each female, representing the female domestic reproductive
power, was a Juno. The male function was a Jupiter.
The juno was worshipped under many titles:
- Iugalis, “of marriage”
- Matronalis, “of married women”
- Pronuba, “of brides”
- Virginalis, “of virginity”
Genii were often viewed as protective spirits, as one would propitiate
them for protection. For example, to protect infants one propitiated a number of
deities concerned with birth and childrearing
:
Cuba (“lying down to sleep”), Cunina (“of the cradle”) and
Rumina (“of breast-feeding”).
Certainly, if those genii did not perform their proper function well, the
infant would be in danger.
Hundreds of lararia, or family shrines, have been discovered at
Pompeii
, typically off the
atrium
, kitchen or garden, where the smoke
of burnt offerings could vent through the opening in the roof. A lararium
was distinct from the penus (“within”), another shrine where the
penates
, gods associated with the storerooms,
was located. Each lararium features a panel fresco containing the same
theme: two peripheral figures (Lares)
attend on a central figure (family genius) or two figures (genius
and Juno) who may or may not be at an altar. In the foreground is one or
two serpents crawling toward the genius through a meadow motif.
Campania
and
Calabria
preserved an ancient practice of
keeping a propitious house snake, here linked with the genius.
In another, unrelated fresco (House
of the Centenary) the snake-in-meadow appears below a depiction of
Mount Vesuvius
and is labelled Agathodaimon,
“good
daimon
“, where daimon must be regarded
as the Greek equivalent of genius.
History of the concept
Origin
Etymologically
genius
(“household guardian spirit”) has
the same derivation as nature from
gēns
(“tribe”, “people”) from the
Indo-European
root *gen-, “produce.”
It is the indwelling nature of an object or class of objects or events that act
with a perceived or hypothesized unity.
Philosophically the Romans did not find the paradox of the one being many
confusing; like all other prodigies they attributed it to the inexplicable
mystery of divinity. Multiple events could therefore be attributed to the same
and different divinities and a person could be the same as and different from
his genius. They were not distinct, as the later guardian angels, and yet
the Genius Augusti was not exactly the same as Augustus either. As
a natural outcome of these beliefs, the pleasantness of a place, the strength of
an oath, an ability of a person, were regarded as intrinsic to the object, and
yet were all attributable to genius; hence all of the modern meanings of
the word. This point of view is not attributable to any one civilization; its
roots are lost in prehistory. The Etruscans had such beliefs at the beginning of
history, but then so did the Greeks, the native Italics and many other peoples
in the near and middle east.
Genii under the
monarchy
No literature of the monarchy has survived, but later authors in recounting
its legends mention the genius. For example, under
Servius Tullius
the triplets
Horatii
of Rome fought the triplets Curiatii of
Alba Longa
for the decision of the war that had
arisen between the two communities. Horatius was left standing but his sister,
who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, began to keen, breast-beat and
berate Horatius. He executed her, was tried for murder, was acquitted by the
Roman people but the king made him expiate the Juno of his sister and the
Genius Curiatii, a family genius.
Republican genii
The genius appears explicitly in Roman literature relatively late as
early as Plautus
, where one character in the play,
Captivi
, jests that the father of another
is so avaricious that he uses cheap Samian ware in sacrifices to his own
genius, so as not to tempt the genius to steal it.In this passage, the genius is not identical to the person, as to
propitiate oneself would be absurd, and yet the genius also has the
avarice of the person; that is, the same character, the implication being, like
person, like genius.
Implied geniuses date to much earlier; for example, when
Horatius Cocles
defends the
Pons Sublicius
against an Etruscan crossing at
the beginning of the
Roman Republic
, after the bridge is cut down he
prays to the Tiber to bear him up as he swims across: Tiberine pater te,
sancte, precor …, “Holy father Tiber, I pray to you ….” The Tiber so
addressed is a genius. Although the word is not used here, in later
literature it is identified as one.
Horace
describes the genius as “the companion
which controls the natal star; the god of human nature, in that he is mortal for
each person, with a changing expression, white or black”.
Imperial genii
Genius of Domitian
Octavius Caesar
on return to Rome after the
final victory of the
Roman Civil War
at the
Battle of Actium
appeared to the Senate to be a
man of great power and success, clearly a mark of divinity. In recognition of
the prodigy they voted that all banquets should include a libation to his
genius. In concession to this sentiment he chose the name
Augustus
, capturing the numinous meaning of
English “august.” This line of thought was probably behind the later vote in 30
BC that he was divine, as the household cult of the Genius Augusti dates
from that time. It was propitiated at every meal along with the other household
numina.The vote began the tradition of the
divine emperors
; however, the divinity went
with the office and not the man. The Roman emperors gave ample evidence that
they personally were neither immortal nor divine.
Inscription on votive altar to the genius of
Legio VII Gemina
by L. Attius Macro
(CIL
II 5083)
If the genius
of the
imperator
, or commander of all troops, was
to be propitiated, so was that of all the units under his command. The
provincial troops expanded the idea of the genii of state; for example,
from Roman Britain have been found altars to the genii of Roma,
Roman aeterna, Britannia, and to every
legion
,
cohors
,
ala
and
centuria
in Britain, as well as to the
praetorium
of every
castra
and even to the
vexillae
.
Inscriptional dedications to genius were not confined to the military.
From
Gallia Cisalpina
under the empire are numerous
dedications to the genii of persons of authority and respect; in addition
to the emperor’s genius principis, were the geniuses of patrons of
freedmen, owners of slaves, patrons of guilds, philanthropists, officials,
villages, other divinities, relatives and friends. Sometimes the dedication is
combined with other words, such as “to the genius and honor” or in the case of
couples, “to the genius and Juno.”
Surviving from the time of the empire hundreds of dedicatory, votive and
sepulchral inscriptions ranging over the entire territory testify to a floruit
of genius worship as an official cult. Stock phrases were abbreviated:
GPR, genio populi Romani (“to the genius of the Roman people”); GHL,
genio huius loci (“to the genius of this place”); GDN, genio domini
nostri (“to the genius of our master”), and so on. In 392 AD with the final
victory of Christianity
Theodosius I
declared the worship of the Genii,
Lares
and
Penates
to be treason, ending their official
terms.
The concept, however, continued in representation and speech under different
names or with accepted modifications.
Roman iconography
Coins
The genius of a corporate social body is often a
cameo
theme on ancient coins: a
denarius
from Spain, 76–75 BC, featuring a bust
of the GPR (Genius Populi Romani, “Genius of the Roman People”) on
the
obverse
;
an aureus
of
Siscia
in
Croatia
, 270–275 AD, featuring a standing image
of the GENIUS ILLVR (Genius Exercitus Illyriciani,
“Genius of the Illyrian Army”) on the reverse;
an aureus
of Rome, 134–138 AD, with an image of a
youth holding a cornucopia and patera (sacrificial dish) and the inscription
GENIOPR, genio populi Romani, “to the genius of the Roman people,” on the
reverse.
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Modern-era
representations
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The sestertius, or sesterce, (pl. sestertii) was an
ancient Roman
coin. During the
Roman Republic
it was a small,
silver
coin issued only on rare occasions.
During the
Roman Empire
it was a large
brass
coin.
Helmed Roma head right, IIS behind
Dioscuri
riding right, ROMA in linear frame
below. RSC4, C44/7, BMC13.
The name sestertius (originally semis-tertius) means “2 ½”, the
coin’s original value in
asses
, and is a combination of semis
“half” and tertius “third”, that is, “the third half” (0 ½ being the
first half and 1 ½ the second half) or “half the third” (two units
plus half the third unit, or halfway between the second unit and
the third). Parallel constructions exist in
Danish
with halvanden (1 ½),
halvtredje (2 ½) and halvfjerde (3 ½). The form sesterce,
derived from
French
, was once used in preference to the
Latin form, but is now considered old-fashioned.
It is abbreviated as (originally IIS).
Example of a detailed portrait of
Hadrian
117 to 138
History
The sestertius was introduced c. 211 BC as a small
silver
coin valued at one-quarter of a
denarius
(and thus one hundredth of an
aureus
). A silver denarius was supposed to
weigh about 4.5 grams, valued at ten grams, with the silver sestertius valued at
two and one-half grams. In practice, the coins were usually underweight.
When the denarius was retariffed to sixteen asses (due to the gradual
reduction in the size of bronze denominations), the sestertius was accordingly
revalued to four asses, still equal to one quarter of a denarius. It was
produced sporadically, far less often than the denarius, through 44 BC.
under
Trajan Decius
250 AD
In or about 23 BC, with the coinage reform of
Augustus
, the denomination of sestertius was
introduced as the large brass denomination. Augustus tariffed the value of the
sestertius as 1/100 Aureus
. The sestertius was produced as the
largest brass
denomination until the late 3rd century
AD. Most were struck in the mint of
Rome but from AD 64 during the reign of
Nero (AD 54–68) and
Vespasian
(AD 69–79), the mint of
Lyon (Lugdunum), supplemented production. Lyon sestertii can
be recognised by a small globe, or legend stop), beneath the bust.[citation
needed]
The brass sestertius typically weighs in the region of 25 to 28 grammes, is
around 32–34 mm in diameter and about 4 mm thick. The distinction between
bronze
and brass was important to the Romans.
Their name for brass
was
orichalcum
, a word sometimes also spelled
aurichalcum (echoing the word for a gold coin, aureus), meaning
‘gold-copper’, because of its shiny, gold-like appearance when the coins were
newly struck (see, for example
Pliny the Elder
in his Natural History
Book 34.4).
Orichalcum
was considered, by weight, to be
worth about double that of bronze. This is why the half-sestertius, the
dupondius
, was around the same size and weight
as the bronze as, but was worth two asses.
Sestertii continued to be struck until the late 3rd century, although there
was a marked deterioration in the quality of the metal used and the striking
even though portraiture remained strong. Later emperors increasingly relied on
melting down older sestertii, a process which led to the zinc component being
gradually lost as it burned off in the high temperatures needed to melt copper (Zinc
melts at 419 °C, Copper
at 1085 °C). The shortfall was made up
with bronze and even lead. Later sestertii tend to be darker in appearance as a
result and are made from more crudely prepared blanks (see the
Hostilian
coin on this page).
The gradual impact of
inflation
caused by
debasement
of the silver currency meant that
the purchasing power of the sestertius and smaller denominations like the
dupondius and as was steadily reduced. In the 1st century AD, everyday small
change was dominated by the dupondius and as, but in the 2nd century, as
inflation bit, the sestertius became the dominant small change. In the 3rd
century silver coinage contained less and less silver, and more and more copper
or bronze. By the 260s and 270s the main unit was the double-denarius, the
antoninianus
, but by then these small coins
were almost all bronze. Although these coins were theoretically worth eight
sestertii, the average sestertius was worth far more in plain terms of the metal
they contained.
Some of the last sestertii were struck by
Aurelian
(270–275 AD). During the end of its
issue, when sestertii were reduced in size and quality, the
double sestertius
was issued first by
Trajan Decius
(249–251 AD) and later in large
quantity by the ruler of a breakaway regime in the West called
Postumus
(259–268 AD), who often used worn old
sestertii to
overstrike
his image and legends on. The double
sestertius was distinguished from the sestertius by the
radiate crown
worn by the emperor, a device
used to distinguish the dupondius from the as and the antoninianus from the
denarius.
Eventually, the inevitable happened. Many sestertii were withdrawn by the
state and by forgers, to melt down to make the debased antoninianus, which made
inflation worse. In the coinage reforms of the 4th century, the sestertius
played no part and passed into history.
Hadrian
, dupondius of
Antoninus Pius
, and as of
Marcus Aurelius
As a unit of account
The sestertius was also used as a standard unit of account, represented on
inscriptions with the monogram HS. Large values were recorded in terms of
sestertium milia, thousands of sestertii, with the milia often
omitted and implied. The hyper-wealthy general and politician of the late Roman
Republic,
Crassus
(who fought in the war to defeat
Spartacus
), was said by Pliny the Elder to have
had ‘estates worth 200 million sesterces’.
A loaf of bread cost roughly half a sestertius, and a
sextarius
(~0.5 liter) of
wine anywhere from less than half to more than 1 sestertius. One
modius
(6.67 kg) of
wheat
in 79 AD
Pompeii
cost 7 sestertii, of
rye
3 sestertii, a bucket 2 sestertii, a tunic 15 sestertii, a donkey 500 sestertii.
Records from Pompeii
show a
slave
being sold at auction for 6,252 sestertii.
A writing tablet from
Londinium
(Roman
London
), dated to c. 75–125 AD, records the
sale of a Gallic
slave girl called Fortunata for 600
denarii, equal to 2,400 sestertii, to a man called Vegetus. It is difficult to
make any comparisons with modern coinage or prices, but for most of the 1st
century AD the ordinary
legionary
was paid 900 sestertii per annum,
rising to 1,200 under
Domitian
(81-96 AD), the equivalent of 3.3
sestertii per day. Half of this was deducted for living costs, leaving the
soldier (if he was lucky enough actually to get paid) with about 1.65 sestertii
per day.
Perhaps a more useful comparison is a modern salary: in 2010 a private
soldier in the US Army (grade E-2) earned about $20,000 a year.
Numismatic value
A sestertius of
Nero
, struck at
Rome
in 64 AD. The reverse depicts
the emperor on horseback with a companion. The legend reads DECVRSIO,
‘a military exercise’. Diameter 35mm
Sestertii are highly valued by
numismatists
, since their large size gave
caelatores (engravers) a large area in which to produce detailed portraits
and reverse types. The most celebrated are those produced for
Nero (54-68 AD) between the years 64 and 68 AD, created by some of
the most accomplished coin engravers in history. The brutally realistic
portraits of this emperor, and the elegant reverse designs, greatly impressed
and influenced the artists of the
Renaissance
. The series issued by
Hadrian
(117-138 AD), recording his travels
around the Roman Empire, brilliantly depicts the Empire at its height, and
included the first representation on a coin of the figure of
Britannia
; it was revived by
Charles II
, and was a feature of
United Kingdom
coinage until the
2008 redesign
.
Very high quality examples can sell for over a million
dollars
at auction as of 2008, but the coins
were produced in such colossal abundance that millions survive.
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