ELAGABALUS Bunch of Grapes Bacchus MARCIANOPOLIS Rare Ancient Roman Coin i49372

Item: i49372

Authentic Ancient 

Roman Coin of:

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

Bronze 17mm (2.43 grams) from the Roman provincial city 

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

Laureate head right.
MAPKIANOΠOΛITΩN,  Bunch of grapes, associated with

Dionysus.

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Guarantee of Authenticity.

Dionysus
is the god of the 
grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and 
religious ecstasy in
Greek mythology
. Alcohol, especially

wine, played an important role in Greek


culture 
with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His name, thought 
to be a theonym
in
Linear B
tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH 
Gq 5 inscription), shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c. 
1500–1100 BC by
Mycenean Greeks
; other traces of the 
Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient
Minoan Crete
. His origins are uncertain, and 
his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, 
others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic 
foreigner; in others, from
Ethiopia
in the South. He is a god of
epiphany
, “the god that comes”, and his 
“foreignness” as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his 
cults. He is a major, popular figure of
Greek mythology
and
religion
, and is included in some lists of the
twelve Olympians
. Dionysus was the last god to 
be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a 
mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of
Greek theatre
. He is an example of a
dying god
.

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. 
He holds a fennel
staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known 
as a thyrsus
. Later images show him as a 
beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature 
describes him as womanly or “man-womanish”. In its fully developed form, his 
central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if 
from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession
(thiasus) 
is made up of wild female followers (maenads) 
and bearded
satyrs
with
erect penises
. Some are armed with the
thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, 
usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a 
bearded, drunken Silenus
. This procession is presumed to be the 
cult model for the human followers of his
Dionysian Mysteries
. In his
Thracian
mysteries, he wears the bassaris 
or
fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city 
religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society 
and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, 
everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the 
unforeseeable action of the gods.

Also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the
Romans
and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. 
His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a 
beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose 
his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios 
(“the liberator”), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from 
self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the 
powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the 
god himself. His cult is also a “cult of the souls”; his maenads feed the dead 
through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living 
and the dead.

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of

Zeus and the mortal
Semele
, thus semi-divine or

heroic: and as son of Zeus and
Persephone
or
Demeter
, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic 
and possibly identical with
Iacchus
of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
. Some scholars believe 
that Dionysus is a
syncretism
of a local Greek nature deity and a 
more powerful god from
Thrace
or
Phrygia
such as
Sabazios
or
Zalmoxis
.

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

.