A Tale of Three Victories

A silver denarius of Septimius Severus, struck at the mint of Laodicea ad Mare between 198 and 202 CE, is a deceptively modest object - 17 millimeters in diameter and weighing 3.04 grams. The modesty underrepresents the significant geopolitical events at play.

The first attractions are the fine style of the portrait, the cabinet tone, and the reverse legend VICTORIAE AVGG FEL. The coin carries a bearded portrait of the African-born emperor, advertising his self-claimed Antonine heritage. Severus's mature portraits use a long forked beard and three to four corkscrew locks falling on the forehead, deliberately modeled on the late portraits of Marcus Aurelius. The portrait is paired with an elegantly engraved, active, wind-whipped depiction of Victory.

Several victories converge on this coin, and the longer one looks at it, the more they accumulate.

The Victory of Laodicea

The coin exists in the form it does because of a punishment. During the civil war of 193–194 CE between Septimius Severus and Pescennius Niger, Antioch — capital of Roman Syria and one of the great mints of the empire — supported Niger. Laodicea ad Mare, sixty miles south on the Syrian coast, declared for Severus and was sacked in retaliation by Niger's general Aemilianus.

When Severus emerged victorious, he reorganized the province and rewarded loyalty. Antioch was stripped of its metropolitan rank and its mint. Laodicea was elevated to metropolis, granted the ius Italicum (an exemption from land tax normally reserved for cities on Italian soil), and given the imperial mint that Antioch had lost.

The coin is a "new style" Syrian issue, a significant improvement in strike quality and flan preparation compared to earlier eastern issues — though not in silver content, which is a debased alloy of approximately 46% fineness. The debasement was set in motion by Severus's reforms beginning in 194 CE, under the pressure of civil-war expenditures and a promised increase in military pay. Overturning an earlier analysis, Gitler and Ponting, working from chemical signatures, conclude that the "new style" denarii of Laodicea were struck locally rather than produced at Rome and shipped east.

This first victory: Laodicea over Antioch.

Septimius Severus, 193–211 CE. AR Denarius, Laodicea mint, struck 198–202 CE. 17.00 mm, 3.04 g.

Obv. L SEPT SEV AVG IMP XI PART MAX. Laureate head of Septimius Severus right.

Rev. VICTORIAE AVGG FEL. Victory, winged and draped, flying left, holding a diadem (or open wreath) in both hands over a shield set on a low base.

Refs. RIC IV 516; RSC 719.

Notes. "New Style" Syrian issue. Cabinet tone, Good Very Fine.

The Victory on the Reverse

The second victory is the winged goddess on the Reverse: The reverse legend reads VICTORIAE AVGG FEL, expanded as Victoriae Augustorum Felicium: "To the Victory of the Fortunate Augusti." The doubled G in AVGG is the abbreviation for the plural Augustorum, signaling that there are now two Augusti. In late 197 or early 198 CE, on the march toward Ctesiphon, Severus elevated his elder son Caracalla — not yet ten years old — to the rank of Augustus, and his younger son Geta to Caesar. The coin also declares Severus's expectations of a lasting dynasty.

Victory hovers left, winged and draped, holding in both hands an open diadem above a shield set on a low pedestal (a cippus). The shield is a trophy (a tropaeum), the standard Roman emblem of an enemy's arms displayed after defeat. The object in her hands rewards a second look. A diadem — a long flexible ribbon — was what bound the head of an eastern king, where a Roman victor was crowned with a rigid wreath. Victory is laying the diadem of eastern kingship over the trophy of its defeat. The images and legend combine to make a single clear claim: the submission of Parthian monarchy to the emperor and to Rome.

Some catalogs describe the object as an open wreath rather than a diadem; the ambiguity is preserved in the catalog entry. In either case, the message is the same:  the submission of Parthian monarchy to the emperor and Rome.

The Victory over Parthia

The obverse legend, L SEPT SEV AVG IMP XI PART MAX, registers the military victory that the reverse celebrates. IMP XI is Severus's eleventh imperial acclamation. PART MAX - Parthicus Maximus, "Greatest Conqueror of the Parthians" - is the title he took after sacking Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital, in early 198 CE. Cassius Dio, writing within living memory of the events, sets the scene:

"Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ὁ Σεουῆρος ἐκστρατεύει κατὰ τῶν Πάρθων..."

"After this Severus made a campaign against the Parthians. For while he had been occupied with the civil wars they had taken advantage of their immunity and had captured Mesopotamia, whither they had made an expedition in full force. They had also come very near seizing Nisibis, and would have succeeded, had not Laetus, who was besieged there, saved the place."

— Cassius Dio, Roman History, 76.9

Severus marched down the Euphrates, took Seleucia and Babylon without resistance, and sacked Ctesiphon. By 199 CE, having survived as sole ruler from the civil wars against Niger and Albinus, he had entered a period of foreign conquest, and the "Victory of the Fortunate Augusti" served to shift Roman attention from civil war to external triumph. The denarius was struck while the victory was still fresh.

The silver itself, however, is a quieter commentary on the cost of victory. While conforming closely to the post-reform weight standard of about 3 grams (this example, at 3.04 g, is on the mark), the coin is not pure silver. Early imperial denarii had been better than 90% fine silver; the Severan issues, at Rome and at the eastern mints alike, have been shown by Butcher, Ponting, and Gitler to run at approximately 46% silver, with the remainder copper and trace impurities.

Severus had fought two civil wars - against Niger in the east, Clodius Albinus in the west - and the Parthian war within five years. He had also raised legionary pay, from the 300 denarii per year that Domitian had established more than a century earlier to something on the order of 400 (some estimates run higher; the precise figure remains debated). Reducing the silver content of the denarii stretched the imperial budget.

The third victory associated with this coin: Rome over Parthia, would have helped to shift Roman attention from civil war to external triumph.

Bibliography

• Butcher, Kevin. Coinage in Roman Syria: Northern Syria, 64 BC–AD 253. London: Royal Numismatic Society, 2004.

• Butcher, Kevin, and Matthew Ponting. The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage: From the Reforms of Nero to the Reform of Trajan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

• Cassius Dio. Roman History, Volume IX: Books 71-80. Translated by Earnest Cary. Loeb Classical Library 177. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927.

• Gitler, Haim, and Matthew Ponting. The Silver Coinage of Septimius Severus and his Family (AD 193-211); a Study of the Chemical Composition of the Roman and Eastern Issues. Glaux 16. Milan: Ennerre, 2003.

• Mattingly, Harold, and Edward A. Sydenham. The Roman Imperial Coinage: Vol. IV, Part I. Pertinax to Geta. London: Spink & Son, 1936.