Lucilla
– Roman Empress Wife of Lucius Verus – 164-183 A.D.
Bronze As 24mm (7.74 grams) Rome mint: 164-169 A.D.
Reference: RIC 1760.
LVCILLA AVGVSTA. Draped bust right.
SALVS AVG Exe: SC. Salus seated left, feeding from patera a serpent rising from
altar.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
<=”” p=””>
In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
, Hygieia (also Hygiea
or Hygeia, Greek Ὑγιεία or
Ὑγεία, Latin Hygēa or Hygīa),
was the daughter of the god of medicine,
Asclepius
, and
Epione
. She was the goddess/personification of
health, cleanliness and sanitation.
Hygieia
and her five sisters each performed a facet of
Apollo
‘s art: Hygieia (“Hygiene” the
goddess/personification of health, cleanliness, and sanitation),
Panacea
(the goddess of Universal remedy),
Iaso (the goddess of recuperation from illness),
Aceso
(the goddess of the healing process).
Hygieia also played an important part in her father’s
cult
. While her father was more directly
associated with healing, she was associated with the prevention of sickness and
the continuation of good health. Her name is the source of the word “hygiene“.
She was imported by the Romans as the Goddess Valetudo, the goddess of personal
health, but in time she started to be increasingly identified with the ancient
Italian goddess of social welfare,
Salus
.
History
At Athens, Hygieia was the subject of a local cult since at least the 7th
century BC. “Athena Hygieia” was one of the cult titles given to
Athena
, as Plutarch recounts of the building of
the Parthenon
(447-432 BC):
“ |
A strange accident happened in the course of building, which showed that
the goddess was not averse to the work, but was aiding and co-operating
to bring it to perfection. One of the artificers, the quickest and the
handiest workman among them all, with a slip of his foot fell down from
a great height, and lay in a miserable condition, the physicians having
no hope of his recovery. When Pericles was in distress about this, the
goddess [Athena] appeared to him at night in a dream, and ordered a
course of treatment, which he applied, and in a short time and with
great ease cured the man. And upon this occasion it was that he set up a
brass statue of Athena Hygieia, in the citadel near the altar, which
they say was there before. But it was
Phidias
who wrought the goddess’s image
in gold, and he has his name inscribed on the pedestal as the workman of
it. |
” |
However, the cult of Hygieia as an independent goddess did not begin to
spread out until the
Delphic oracle
recognized her, and after the
devastating
Plague of Athens
(430-427 BC) and in Rome in
293 BC.
In the 2nd century AD,
Pausanias
noted the statues both of Hygieia and
of Athena Hygieia near the entrance to the
Acropolis
of Athens.
Worship
Hygieia’s primary temples were in
Epidaurus
,
Corinth
,
Cos
and Pergamon
.
Pausanias
remarked that, at the Asclepieion
of Titane
in
Sicyon
(founded by
Alexanor
, Asclepius’ grandson), statues of
Hygieia were covered by women’s hair and pieces of
Babylonian
clothes. According to inscriptions,
the same sacrifices were offered at
Paros
.
Ariphron
, a Sicyonian artist from the 4th
century BC wrote a well-known
hymn celebrating her. Statues of Hygieia were created by
Scopas
,
Bryaxis
and
Timotheus
, among others, but there is no clear
description of what they looked like. She was often depicted as a young woman
feeding a large snake that was wrapped around her body or drinking from a jar
that she carried. These attributes were later adopted by the
Gallo-Roman
healing goddess,
Sirona
. Hygieia was accompanied by her brother,
Telesphorus
.
The
Pythagoreans
called the pentagram ὑγιεία Hugieia (“health”); also the Greek goddess of
health, Hygieia
and saw in the pentagram a mathematical perfection.
Lucilla, Augusta, A.D.
164-182/3
Wife of Lucius Verus
Daughter of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina Junior
Sister of Commodus, Annius Verus and Aurelius Antoninus
Granddaughter of Antoninus Pius and Faustina Senior
Annia
Aurelia
Galeria Lucilla or Lucilla (March 7, 148 or 150-182) was the second
daughter
and third child
of Roman Emperor
Marcus Aurelius
and Roman Empress
Faustina
the Younger
and an elder
sister
to future Roman Emperor
Commodus
.
Lucilla was the younger twin. Her elder brother Gemellus
Lucillae died around 150. She was born and raised in
Rome
.
Lucilla’s maternal grandparents were Roman Emperor
Antoninus Pius and
Roman Empress
Faustina the
Elder
and her paternal grandparents were
Domitia Lucilla
and praetor
Marcus Annius Verus
.
Lucilla in 161, was betrothed to her father’s co-ruler
Lucius
Verus
and they married in 164, in
Ephesus
. At
that time, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus were a fighting a
Parthian
war
in Syria
. She
received the title of Augusta and became a Roman Empress.
Lucilla bore Lucius three children: two daughters and a son.
The first daughter was born in 165 in
Antioch
. The
elder daughter Aurelia Lucilla and son Lucius Verus died young. Lucilla was an
influential and respectable woman and she enjoyed her status. She spent much
time in Rome, while Lucius was away from Rome much of the time, fulfilling his
duties as a co-ruler. Lucius died around 168/169.
Sometime in 169, Marcus Aurelius forced her to marry Tiberius
Claudius
Pompeianus
Quintianus, a Syrian Roman who was twice consul and a political
ally to her father. Lucilla and her mother were against this marriage, because
Quintianus was an older man and Lucilla preferred to marry a younger man.
Lucilla around 170, bore Quintianus a son called
Pompeianus
.
Lucilla and Quintianus accompanied Marcus Aurelius in 172, to
Vienna
in
support of the Danube military campaign. They were with him until March 17 180,
when her father died and Commodus became the new emperor. They returned to Rome
and any hope of Lucilla becoming empress again was now lost.
Lucilla was not happy living as a quiet, private citizen in
Rome and became jealous of her brother and her sister-in-law because of all the
attention that they received. Also she became very concerned due to the unstable
behaviour of her brother.
In 182 Lucilla, her daughter from her first marriage Plautia,
her nephew-in-marriage and with help from her paternal cousins the former consul
Marcus Ummidius Quadratus Annianus
and his sister
Ummidia Cornificia Faustina
, had planned to assassinate
Commodus
and replace him with her husband and herself as the new rulers of Rome.
Quintianus’ nephew of the same name burst from his place of
hiding with a dagger, trying to stab Commodus. He said to him “Here is the
dagger the senate sends to you”, giving away his intentions before he had the
chance to act. The guards were faster than he was. He was overpowered and
disarmed without doing the emperor any harm.
Commodus had ordered the deaths of her nephew-in-marriage and
Marcus Ummidius Quadratus Annianus. Lucilla, her daughter and Ummidia Cornificia
Faustina were banished to the Italian island of
Capri
. The
Emperor then sent a centurion to Capri to execute the three women later that
year.
In the 1964 film
The Fall of the Roman Empire
, Lucilla is played by
Sophia
Loren
; in the 2000 film
Gladiator
, she was played by
Connie Nielsen
.
|