Item: i61900


Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Elagabalus – Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D.
Silver Denarius 19mm (3.33 grams) Rome mint: 218-222 A.D.
Reference: RIC 107; C 92
Certification: NGC Ancients  AU  4529166-011
IMP ANTONINVS PIVS AVG Laureate and draped bust right.
LIBER-TAS A-VG Libertas with pileus and sceptre, star on right.

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LIBERTAS – Liberty is represented in two ways on coins: the one as a woman with a naked head, which is the image of Roman Liberty; the other having her head covered with a veil, and adorned with a diadem, is the effigy of the goddess of liberty, whose temple was on Mount Aventine. The veil is in this case the token of divinity, as indeed the diadem is the ornament of a goddess. Liberty is represented not only on consular medals, but also with considerable frequency on those of the imperial series.

Goddesses named for and representing the concept Liberty have existed in many cultures, including classical examples dating from the Roman Empire and some national symbols such as the British “Britannia” or the Irish “Kathleen Ni Houlihan”. The ancient Roman goddess Libertas was honored during the second Punic War by a temple erected on the Aventine Hill in Rome by the father of Tiberius Gracchus. A statue in her honor was also raised by Clodius on the site of Marcus Tullius Cicero’s house after it had been razed. The figure also resembles Sol Invictus, the Roman god of sun.

Elagabalus – Emperor: 218-222 A.D.

Son of Julia Soaemias | Husband of Julia Paula, Aquilia Severa and Annia Faustina | Grandson of Julia Maesa | Nephew of Julia Mamaea | Cousin of Severus Alexander | Second-cousin of Geta and Caracalla (Supposedly a natural son of Caracalla) | Great-nephew of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna |

Elagabalus (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, ca. 203 – 11 March 222), also known as Heliogabalus, was Roman Emperor from 218 to 222. A member of the Severan Dynasty, he was Syrian on his mother’s side, the son of Julia Soaemias and Sextus Varius Marcellus. In his early youth he served as a priest of the god Elagabal (in Latin, Elagabalus) in the hometown of his mother’s family, Emesa. As a private citizen, he was probably named Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus. Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. He was called Elagabalus only after his death.

In 217, the emperor Caracalla was assassinated and replaced by his Praetorian prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Caracalla’s maternal aunt, Julia Maesa, successfully instigated a revolt among the Third Legion to have her eldest grandson (and Caracalla’s cousin), Elagabalus, declared emperor in his place. Macrinus was defeated on 8 June 218, at the Battle of Antioch. Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old, became emperor, initiating a reign remembered mainly for sexual scandal and religious controversy.

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity of whom he was high priest, Elagabal. He forced leading members of Rome’s government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, over which he personally presided. Elagabalus was married as many as five times, lavished favors on male courtiers popularly thought to have been his lovers, employed a prototype of whoopee cushions at dinner parties, and was reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. His behavior estranged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate, and the common people alike.

Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, just 18 years old, was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Alexander Severus on 11 March 222, in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence and zealotry. This tradition has persisted, and in writers of the early modern age he suffers one of the worst reputations among Roman emperors. Edward Gibbon, for example, wrote that Elagabalus “abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury.” According to B.G. Niebuhr, “The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” because of his “unspeakably disgusting life.”

Elagabalus and his entourage spent the winter of 218 in Bithynia at Nicomedia, where the emperor’s religious beliefs first presented themselves as a problem. The contemporary historian Cassius Dio suggests that Gannys was in fact killed by the new emperor because he was forcing Elagabalus to live “temperately and prudently.” To help Romans adjust to the idea of having an oriental priest as emperor, Julia Maesa had a painting of Elagabalus in priestly robes sent to Rome and hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the Senate House. This placed senators in the awkward position of having to make offerings to Elagabalus whenever they made offerings to Victoria.

The legions were dismayed by his behaviour and quickly came to regret having supported his accession. While Elagabalus was still on his way to Rome, brief revolts broke out by the Fourth Legion at the instigation of Gellius Maximus, and by the Third Legion, which itself had been responsible for the elevation of Elagabalus to the throne, under the command of Senator Verus. The rebellion was quickly put down, and the Third Legion disbanded.

When the entourage reached Rome in the autumn of 219, Comazon and other allies of Julia Maesa and Elagabalus were given powerful and lucrative positions, to the outrage of many senators who did not consider them worthy of such privileges. After his tenure as Praetorian prefect, Comazon would serve as the city prefect of Rome three times, and as consul twice. Elagabalus soon devalued the Roman currency. He decreased the silver purity of the denarius from 58% to 46.5% – the actual silver weight dropping from 1.82 grams to 1.41 grams. He also demonetized the antoninianus during this period in Rome.

Elagabalus tried to have his presumed lover, the charioteer Hierocles, declared Caesar, while another alleged lover, the athlete Aurelius Zoticus, was appointed to the non-administrative but influential position of Master of the Chamber, or Cubicularius. His offer of amnesty for the Roman upper class was largely honored, though the jurist Ulpian was exiled.

The relationships between Julia Maesa, Julia Soaemias, and Elagabalus were strong at first. His mother and grandmother became the first women to be allowed into the Senate, and both received senatorial titles: Soaemias the established title of Clarissima, and Maesa the more unorthodox Mater Castrorum et Senatus (“Mother of the army camp and of the Senate”). While Julia Maesa tried to position herself as the power behind the throne and thus the most powerful woman in the world, Elagabalus would prove to be highly independent, set in his ways, and impossible to control.