Severus II as Caesar 305AD Ancient Roman Coin Genius Protection Wealth i34703

Severus II – Roman Emperor : 306-307 A.D.
Severus II as Caesar
Bronze  Follis 28mm (8.15 grams) Lugdunum mint: 305-307 A.D.
Reference: RIC 193 (Lugdunum)
 FLVALSEVERVSNOBC – Laureate, cuirassed bust right.
GENIOPOPVLIROMANI Exe: PLG – Genius standing left, sacrificing over altar
and holding cornucopia.

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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.

Scene from Lararium, House of Iulius Polybius, Pompeii  Agathodaimon (“good  divinity”), genius of the soil around Vesuvius  Unknown Roman genius near Pompeii, 1st century BC  Genius of Augustus   Genius of Antoninus Pius

Modern-era 
representations

Genius of love, Meister des Rosenromans, 1420-1430  Genius of victory, Michelangelo (1475-1564  Genius of Palermo , Ignazio Marabitti,  c. 1778  Genius of liberty, Augustin Dumont , 1801-1884  Genius of Alexander, Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun,  1814  Genius of war, Arturo Melida y Alinara (1849-1902)  Genius of  Beethoven

Flavius Valerius Severus (or rarely Severus II) 
(died February 307) was a
Western Roman Emperor
from 306 to 307 (1 May 
305 – summer 306 (as
Caesar
in the west under
Constantius Chlorus
);
summer 306 – March or April 307 (as
Augustus
in the west, in competition with
Constantine
,
Maxentius
, and
Maximian
).

Severus was of humble birth, born in the
Illyrian
provinces around the middle of the 
third century AD. He rose to become a senior officer in the Roman army, and as 
an old friend of
Galerius
, that emperor ordered that Severus be 
appointed
Caesar
of the
Western Roman Empire
, a post that he succeeded 
to on 1 May 305. He thus served as deputy-emperor to
Constantius I
(Constantius 
Chlorus),
Augustus
of the western half of empire.

On the death of Constantius I in the summer of 306, Severus 
was promoted to Augustus by
Galerius
himself, in opposition to the 
acclamation of
Constantine I
(Constantius’ son) by his own 
soldiers. When
Maxentius
, the son of the retired emperor
Maximian
, revolted at
Rome, Galerius sent Severus to suppress the rebellion. Severus moved 
from his capital,
Mediolanum
, towards Rome, at the head of an 
army previously commanded by Maximian. Fearing the arrival of Severus, Maxentius 
offered Maximian the co-rule of the empire. Maximian accepted, and when Severus 
arrived under the walls of Rome and besieged it, his men deserted him and passed 
to Maximian, their old commander. Severus fled to
Ravenna
, an impregnable position: Maximian 
offered to spare his life and treat him humanely if the latter surrendered 
peaceably, which he did in March or April 307. Despite Maximian’s assurance, 
Severus was nonetheless displayed as a captive and later imprisoned at
Tres Tabernae
. When Galerius himself invaded 
Italy to suppress Maxentius and Maximian, the former ordered Severus’s death: he 
was executed (or forced to commit suicide) on 16 February 307.