Birds and Bad Luck

The year 102 BC falls at the climax of the Cimbrian War (113–101 BC), one of the most dangerous military crises the Roman Republic had faced since Hannibal’s invasion a century earlier. Beginning around 113 BC, massive migrations of Germanic and Celtic peoples - principally the Cimbri, Teutones, and Ambrones - had swept southward from northern Europe, crushing Roman armies in a succession of catastrophic defeats.

The Battle of Aurasio

The Battle of Arausio in October 105 BC: two Roman armies were annihilated with losses traditionally estimated at 80,000 soldiers, a disaster comparable to Cannae. Subsequently, he Roman people turned to Gaius Marius, the hero of the recently concluded Jugurthine War in North Africa. Marius was elected consul for consecutive terms from 104 through 100 BC to meet the barbarian threat.

Reforming the Army

Marius fundamentally reform the Roman army, opened military service to landless citizens (the capite censi), reorganized the legions around the cohort as the primary tactical unit, standardized equipment, and subjected his troops to rigorous training. He assembled approximately thirty thousand Roman legionaries and forty thousand Italian allied troops, establishing his base at Aquae Sextiae (modern Aix-en-Provence) in southern Gaul.

The Battle of Aquae Sextiae

In 102 BC, the tribal coalition split: the Teutones and Ambrones moved through southern Gaul toward Italy from the west, while the Cimbri prepared to enter Italy through the Alpine passes from the northeast. Marius confronted the Teutones and Ambrones at Aquae Sextiae, where, after days of careful maneuvering, he lured them into attacking his army on the high ground while a concealed Roman force struck their rear.

The Battle of Aquae Sextiae was a devastating Roman victory: the Teutones were virtually annihilated, their king Teutobod captured, and tens of thousands killed or enslaved. The following year, Marius combined forces with his co-consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus to destroy the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC) in the Po Valley, effectively ending the migration crisis. Marius was hailed as the “Third Founder of Rome,” after Romulus and Camillus.

The Coin

The bird on the reverse that may be a buteo or marsh bird (sumpfvogel) and making a questionable connection between the moneyer and the gens Fabii.

Roman Republican Coins, C. Fabius C. f. Hadrianus, 102 BC, AR denarius (19.6mm, 3.96 grams). Rome.

Obv: EX A PV, veiled and turreted head of Cybele right.

Rev: C FABI C F, victory driving biga right, holding goad, stork before; control mark E below.

Ref: Crawford 322/1b; Fabia 14; Sydenham 590

Note: EX A PV translates to EX Argento PVblico, indicating a special issue struck from the reserve bullion in the public treasury.\

The Gens Fabia

The issuing magistrate, C. Fabius C.f. Hadrianus, was one of the tresviri monetales responsible for the production of Roman coinage in 102 BC. Beyond his service at the mint, little is known of his individual career. His cognomen, Hadrianus, suggests a connection to the Adriatic region of Italy, though the specifics of this branch of the family remain obscure in the surviving literary record.

The gens Fabia to which he belonged was one of the most ancient and illustrious patrician families of Rome, generally counted among the gentes maiores - the most prestigious patrician clans- alongside the Aemilii, Claudii, Cornelii, Manlii, and Valerii. The family’s prominence dated to the earliest years of the Republic: three Fabii brothers held seven consecutive consulships between 485 and 479 BC. Over the course of the Republic, members of the gens held forty-five consulships, a testament to their enduring political influence (Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic).

One branch of the gens Fabia, the Fabii Buteones, took their name from a bird, buteo, which during the Punic War siege of Drepanum settled on the prow of a ship commanded by consul Fabius and was a good omen. Pliny identified the buteo as a type of hawk, but the type of bird is questioned by Crawford in Roman Republican Coinage.

Auspices

Auspicious and Auspices both have roots in “avis” bird and “specere” to look. In ancient Rome an Augur would be consulted before any major undertaking. Augurs would look for omens in the flight and feeding of birds. The story of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus told by Plutarch and others, relates that the two tried to settle their question of where to build the city “by the flight of birds of omen”. There is, of course, more to the story and interpreting the omen leads to a fight in which Remus ends up dead. Still the Romans put a lot of faith in augury:

"Auspiciis hanc urbem conditam esse, auspiciis bello ac pace, domo militiaeque omnia geri, quis est, qui ignoret?"
“Who is it that does not know that this city was only founded after taking auspices and that nothing is done in war and peace, at home or abroad, without taking auspices?”
-Livy (Ab Vrbe Condita VI.41)​

In addition to birds they would consult the entrails of a dead animal for signs as well. Haruspex from haru, entrails, intestines, specere, to look or observe. For me this puts a new twist on having the guts to go into battle, but that takes us away from the birds.

The Moneyer

Crawford also connects C. Fabius Hadrianus to Fabius Hadrianus who was praetor in 84 BC in the Roman province Africa. Fabius Hadrianus was burned alive in an uprising in Utica. There is reason to suspect that this was because he got on the wrong side of Sulla - his successor was Pompey the Great a Sulla supporter.

Cicero had no kind words for C. Fabius Hadrianus:

“He, because Roman citizens could not tolerate his avarice, was burnt alive at Utica in his own house; and that was thought to have happened to him so deservedly, that all men rejoiced, and no punishment was inflicted for the deed.”

Apparently, the bird on this denarius did not augur well for C. Fabius Hadrianus.

References

• Barlow, C. (1977). "The Sanctius Aerarium and the Argento Publico Coinage." American Journal of Philology 98.3: 290–302.

• Broughton, T.R.S. (1951–52). The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. 2 vols. New York: American Philological Association.

• Crawford, M.H. (1974). Roman Republican Coinage. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Livy, Ab Urbe Condita (History of Rome). Trans. B.O. Foster. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Plutarch, Life of Marius. Trans. B. Perrin. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Roller, L.E. (1999). In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP). American Numismatic Society. https://numismatics.org/rrdp/

• Sydenham, E.A. (1952). The Coinage of the Roman Republic. London: Spink & Son.