ELAGABALUS Bisexual Emperor Marcianopolis Ancient Roman Coin ALTAR i22627

Item: i22627

Authentic Ancient

Roman Coin of:

Elagabalus – Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D. –

Bronze 16mm (2.60 grams) from the Roman provincial city 

Marcianopolis in Moesia Inferior Struck 218-222 A.D.

AVT K M AV ANTΩNINOC, Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right.

MARKIANOΠOΛITΩN, Altar lit on fire.

You are bidding on the exact

Guarantee of Authenticity.

Marcianopolis, or Marcianople was an ancient Roman city in

Thracia

. It was located at the site of modern day

Devnya
,

Bulgaria
.

The city was so renamed by Emperor

Trajan
after

his sister

Ulpia Marciana

, and was previously known as Parthenopolis. Romans repulsed a

Gothic
attack to

this town in 267
(or

268), during the

reign of Gallienus

.

Diocletian

made it the capital of the

Moesia Secunda

province.

Valens
made

it his winter quarters in 368 and succeeding years, Emperor

Justinian

I
restored and fortified it. In 587, it was sacked by the king of the

Avars

but at once retaken by the Romans. The Roman army quartered there in

596 before crossing the Danube to assault the Avars.

Between 893 and 972 it was one of the most important medieval cities in

south-eastern Europe.

Elagabalus

(pronounced El-uh-GAB-uh-lus, c. 203 – March 11, 222), also known as

Heliogabalus or Marcus

Aurelius Antoninus, was a

Roman

Emperor
of the

Severan dynasty

who reigned from 218 to 222. Born Varius Avitus Bassianus,

he was

Syrian

on his mother’s side, the son of

Julia Soaemias

and

Sextus Varius Marcellus

, and in his early youth he served as a priest of the

god

El-Gabal

at his hometown,

Emesa

. Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Augustus, and was called Elagabalus only a long time after his death.

In 217,

the emperor Caracalla

was murdered 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, Elagabalus, declared as emperor in

his place. Macrinus was defeated on June 8, 218, at the

Battle of Antioch

, upon which Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old,

ascended to the imperial power and began a reign that was marred by infamous

controversies, to put it mildly.

During his rule, Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions

and sexual taboos. He was married as many as five times and is reported to have

prostituted himself in the imperial palace. Elagabalus replaced

Jupiter

, head of the

Roman pantheon

, with a new god,

Sol Invictus
, and forced leading members of Rome’s government to

participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, which he personally led.

Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, only 18 years old, was assassinated

and replaced by his cousin

Alexander Severus

on March 11, 222, in a plot formed by his grandmother,

Julia Maesa, and members of the

Praetorian Guard

. Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries

for eccentricity, decadence, and zealotry which was likely exaggerated by his

successors and political rivals.

This propaganda was passed on and, as a result, he was one of the most reviled

Roman emperors to early historians. For example,

Edward Gibbon

wrote that Elagabalus “abandoned himself to the grossest

pleasures and ungoverned fury.”

“The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” because of his

“unspeakably disgusting life,” wrote

B.G. Niebuhr

.