The Battle of Lugdunum Redated: 19 February 196

A summary of Curtis Clay's argument and its evidence

Septimius Severus, 193-211. Denarius (Silver, 18 mm, 3.30 g, 12 h), Rome, 196. L SEPT SE[V PERT] AVG IMP VIII Laureate head of Septimius Severus to right. Rev. FORTVNAE REDVC[I] Fortuna seated left, holding rudder in her right hand and cornucopiae in her left; below throne, wheel. BMC 161-2. Cohen 188. RIC 78a.

The conclusion asserted

Curtis Clay, well respected numismatist trained at Oxford, argued that Septimius Severus defeated his rival Clodius Albinus near Lugdunum, Roman Lyon in Gaul, on 19 February 196, one year earlier than the date of 197 found in the standard histories. The victory brought Severus his eighth imperial acclamation, the battlefield salutation recorded on coins and inscriptions as IMP VIII.

Once that acclamation is fixed to February 196, every event of the years 195 to 197 falls into a coherent order. Clay reached this solution in the fall of 1971 while writing his Oxford thesis on the Roman imperial coinage of 193 to 198, and presented it at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1975.

The historical setting

Severus, governor of Upper Pannonia on the Danube, was proclaimed emperor in 193 after the murder of Pertinax. To secure his rear while he marched east against a rival claimant, he granted Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, the rank of Caesar, the junior imperial title marking a designated successor. Severus then campaigned in Mesopotamia, the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, against the Parthians and their allies, while his forces besieged Byzantium, the city on the Bosporus that had sided against him. The break with Albinus, and the war that ended at Lugdunum, came when Severus set his own son in Albinus' place.

Where the traditional date came from

The date of 197 rests on one sentence of Cassius Dio, the Roman senator and historian who lived through these events. Dio wrote that the siege of Byzantium lasted "a full three year period" (Dio 75.12). Scholars took this as three complete years, summer 193 to summer 196, and Dio also states that Severus was still campaigning in Mesopotamia when news of the city's fall reached him. On that reading Severus remained in the East through summer 196, and the battle date of 19 February preserved in the vita Severi, the biography of Severus in the late antique collection called the Historia Augusta, had to belong to 197.

Clay reads Dio's phrase as an inclusive count, a common ancient habit of reckoning that counted partial years as whole ones, the same habit by which Friday to Sunday spans three days. The phrase then means two full years and into the third. Byzantium fell in summer 195, its capture celebrated in one of the two nearly simultaneous acclamations, IMP VI and IMP VII of that summer, and Severus marched for Gaul at once.

The anchor: Caracalla became Caesar in December 195

The decisive fact is the date at which Severus' elder son Caracalla received the rank of Caesar. The vita Severi places that proclamation at Viminacium, a legionary base in Moesia Superior on the Danube in present day Serbia, during the march west, and after the break with Albinus. Three independent chains of evidence date it to late November or December 195.

First, a papyrus from Arsinoe in Egypt, restored by Ulrich Wilcken in Hermes 20 (1885), pages 455 to 456, records a celebration in the Egyptian month Xoiak, 27 November to 26 December, of the year 215, held "because our lord was proclaimed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caesar." The anniversary being celebrated must fall in 195 or 196, and 196 is excluded by an Alexandrian tetradrachm, a provincial silver coin, naming Caracalla as Caesar and dated to the Egyptian Year 4, which ended on 28 August 196.

Second, Cassius Dio himself attended the last horse race in Rome before the Saturnalia, the December festival beginning on the 17th, probably the games of the deified Lucius Verus on 15 December, at which the crowd broke into lamentation over the newly announced civil war (Dio 75.4). News of the break with Albinus therefore reached Rome in the first half of December 195, and the proclamation of Caracalla followed the break closely.

Third, the mint of Rome. Clay's reconstruction of the coinage shows that the mint normally struck five denarius types at a time, three for Severus, one for the empress Julia Domna, and one for the reigning Caesar. Albinus' type ended in summer 195, passing to Severus as an exceptional fourth type, which itself ended just after 10 December 195, when Caracalla's first type as Caesar began.

Clay further demonstrated that Roman bronze medallions, the large presentation pieces struck alongside issues of copper asses, were produced each December as New Year's gifts with titles adjusted for the coming 1 January. Caracalla's first reverse type, SEVERI AVG PII FIL with sacrificial implements, meaning "son of Severus the dutiful emperor," is common on both medallions and asses. Severus discontinued these New Year's issues during 196, so the pieces belong to the issue of 1 January 196, and Caracalla held the rank of Caesar by the end of December 195.

The link to the battle

An aureus, a gold coin, of Severus bears the reverse portrait of Caracalla with that same legend SEVERI AVG PII FIL, and its obverse titles Severus IMP VII. Severus was therefore still IMP VII at Viminacium in December 195, months after leaving Mesopotamia. The fall of Byzantium accounts for one of the acclamations VI and VII of summer 195, and the eighth acclamation remains free for the next victory, the defeat of Albinus on 19 February 196.

Septimius Severus, 193-211. Denarius (Silver, 18 mm, 3.30 g, 12 h), Rome, 196. L SEPT SE[V PERT] AVG IMP VIII Laureate head of Septimius Severus to right. Rev. FORTVNAE REDVC[I] Fortuna seated left, holding rudder in her right hand and cornucopiae in her left; below throne, wheel. BMC 161-2. Cohen 188. RIC 78a.

The proportions of the great coin hoard from Reka Devnia in Bulgaria confirm the timing: among Severus' denarii of the tribunician year 196, types with IMP VII average 15.5 specimens against 96.5 with IMP VIII, so the change fell about one eighth of the way through the year's production, matching a mid February event.

Five problems the redating resolves

The acclamation sequence. Coins date IMP V, with the victory titles PART ARAB PART ADIAB, "conqueror of the Arabs and of Adiabene," to very early 195, and IMP VI and VII to mid 195. The old chronology then left Severus idle in Mesopotamia for a full year before the next recorded event. On the new chronology his second Mesopotamian victory and the news of Byzantium arrived together in summer 195, and he departed at once.

The Ankara gravestone. A Pannonian soldier of Legio X Gemina died at Ankara in central Asia Minor on 3 September 195, "on his way back from Parthia." The stone documents the whole army's westward march in the autumn of 195. The old chronology could explain the man only as an individual discharged early.

The single return to Rome. Coin types of 196 reading ADVENTVI AVG FELICISSIMO and FORTVNAE REDVCI, "for the most fortunate arrival of the emperor" and "to Fortune the home bringer," attest one imperial entry into Rome, made as IMP VIII. No such types exist for any second return after IMP VIIII. The ancient authors likewise record one return, the return after the victory over Albinus. The historian Herodian states that Severus marched directly from the East to Gaul, and a detour to Rome in mid march would have exposed the emperor to assassination and his leaderless army to defection. The old chronology was forced to invent two returns, one known only from coins, one only from the misdated literary sources.

Septimius Severus; 193-211 AD, Rome, 197 AD, Denarius, 2.88g. BM-224, C-349 (3 Fr.), RIC 82 or RIC 100. Obv: L SEPT SEV PERT - [AVG IMP VIIII or VIII] Head laureate right Rev: MVNIFICENTIA AVG Elephant walking right

The largesse and the games. The vita and Dio agree that after the victory Severus rebuked the Senate, executed twenty nine of Albinus' supporters, then gave games and a distribution of money to the people before departing east again. The coins date the second largesse, LIBERALITAS AVG II, entirely to IMP VIII, and the games and departure types, MVNIFICENTIA AVG with its elephant and PROFECTIO AVG with the emperor on horseback, run from IMP VIII into IMP VIIII. On the new chronology these mark a single sequence in spring 197, exactly as the vita describes. The old chronology had to declare the vita mistaken and split the types across two separate occasions.

The later acclamations. With IMP VIII assigned to Lugdunum, the acclamations of 197 find their occasions in the new Parthian war. Dio records that Laetus saved the besieged city of Nisibis in northern Mesopotamia, the Greek verb is διεσώσατο, "he brought it through safely," around May 197, a plausible occasion for IMP VIIII, and that the Parthians withdrew from Mesopotamia on Severus' own arrival, the likely occasion of IMP X.

Reception

Clay published the argument only in brief, at the close of an article on the date and purpose of Roman bronze medallions. The historians Timothy Barnes and Ernst Badian accepted it, Barnes in Gnomon 47 (1975), page 373, and in The Sources of the Historia Augusta (1978), page 87. Anthony Birley retained the date of 197 in both editions of his biography of Severus, dismissing the redating in the 1988 edition, page 248 note 13, as "too implausible to require discussion," without addressing the arguments.

Barnes returned to the traditional date in New England Classical Journal 35.4 (2008), pages 254 to 255, noting the proposal in a footnote. The full case remains in Clay's Oxford thesis of 1972 and in his forum summary of 2016.

Sources

Ancient

• Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 75.

• Historia Augusta, Life of Septimius Severus, for the battle date of 19 February, the proclamation at Viminacium, and the events in Rome after the victory. .

• Herodian, History of the Empire, Book 3, for the direct march from the East to Gaul.

• The gravestone of the soldier of Legio X Gemina who died at Ankara on 3 September 195, recorded in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, volume III.

Curtis Clay

• C.L. Clay, master's thesis on the Roman imperial coinage of Septimius Severus, 193 to 198, University of Oxford, 1972. Unpublished. The deposit copy is held by the Bodleian Libraries; it has never been digitized and does not appear in the Oxford University Research Archive.

• C.L. Clay, contribution on the date and purpose of the issue of Roman bronze medallions, in H.A. Cahn and G. Le Rider, editors, Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of Numismatics, New York and Washington, September 1973 (Paris and Basel 1976).

• C. Clay, "Battle of Lugdunum 19 Feb. 196 not 197: a summary of C. Clay's arguments," Forum Ancient Coins discussion board, 2016.

Modern scholarship

• T.D. Barnes, review in Gnomon 47 (1975), page 373, accepting the redating.

• T.D. Barnes, The Sources of the Historia Augusta, Collection Latomus 55 (Brussels 1978), page 87.

• T.D. Barnes, "Aspects of the Severan Empire, Part I: Severus as a New Augustus," New England Classical Journal 35.4 (2008), pages 251 to 267, at 254 to 255.

• A.R. Birley, Septimius Severus: The African Emperor (London 1971; second edition 1988), page 248 note 13.

• U. Wilcken, "Arsinoitische Tempelrechnungen aus dem J. 215 n. Chr.", Hermes 20 (1885), pages 430 to 476, at 455 to 456, restoring the papyrus that dates the anniversary of Caracalla's proclamation.

• P.V. Hill, The Coinage of Septimius Severus and his Family of the Mint of Rome, A.D. 193 to 217 (London 1964; second edition 1977).

• Kieren Johns, "The Battle of Lugdunum Was the Largest Battle in Roman History," TheCollector, July 8, 2025.

Numismatic catalogues and evidence

• H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, volume V (London 1950), page xcii, and H. Mattingly and E.A. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage, volume IV part 1 (London 1936), page 66, both interpreting the IMP VII aureus as showing Caracalla Caesar. The RIC types are searchable online at OCRE, Online Coins of the Roman Empire.

• N.A. Mouchmov, Le trésor numismatique de Réka-Devnia (Marcianopolis) (Sofia 1934), publishing the hoard of some 81,000 denarii behind Clay's specimen counts. Digital record at the Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire project; summary at Wikipedia.

• F. Gnecchi, I medaglioni romani, three volumes (Milan 1912). Internet Archive: volume I, volume II, volume III.

• J.M.C. Toynbee, Roman Medallions, American Numismatic Society Numismatic Studies 5 (New York 1944; reprinted 1986). Digitized in the ANS Digital Library.