Recent Pick Up...elagabalus Denarius

Thanks Martin....It's nicer in hand but my photography skills are poor...

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Do you mean why is his name on the coin?...The translation I get is 'To the holy sun god Elagabal'. Do you think this is referring to the god or the man himself? Or maybe it's both?...His taken name ANTONINVS is portrayed on the obverse so I'm assuming it's naming the god on the reverse?....I'm very interested in your thoughts...Paul

Quote from A Dictionary of Roman Coins, (p. 356, publ. 1889), by Seth W Stevenson:-

"The next day, as Elagabalus had given orders to arrest those who had taken part in the insurrectionary movement of the day before - the rest of the soldiers took advantage of that occasion to get of a prince they detested; they killed Elagabalus, together with his mother Soemius, and his principal confidants. His body after being dragged through the streets the city, was thrown into the Tibur.
Thus perished on the 11th of March, one of the most cruel, debauched, and shameless wretches, that ever disgraced humanity or polluted a throne, after a reign of three years and nine months, disfigured with every feature of hideous criminality and extravagant folly, not having attained more than the eighteenth year of his age."

Apparently, Victorian antiquarians didn't like him very much!

Denarii, and to a lesser extent the antoninianii, of Elagabalus can be found reasonably easily in VF or better. I guess that he needed lots of money to keep the troops quiet. My guess is that some the troops that didn't get a handout finally did him in.

Very nice coin of Rome's strangest emperor.

In truth, I have always felt a bit of sympathy for Elagabalus. Yes, I know that his character is somewhat to blame, but here's a teenaged boy who started life basically as a sideshow for Roman centurions, suddenly placed in a position where he has access to limitless money and unchecked power. His father was long dead, his mother was almost equally debauched, and his grandmother didn't care as long as she got her power trip. I can tell you that if I was in that position at 14 years old, I wouldn't have been a stable leader, either.

Regarding his name, Elagabalus does indeed refer only to the sun God on his coins, and he was never called that during his lifetime. On an interesting aside, I once saw an auction house (forget which one) attribute his coins as "Antoninus Pius III". Certainly a novel approach, and not inaccurate, either.

The naming conventions of emperors by modern scholars is a bit silly if you think about it -
- Calling Gaius by his childhood nickname Caligula to distinguish him from Augustus' grandson
- Applying slanderous nicknames to Antoninus Pius II and III like Caracalla and Elagabalus
- Calling Julian "the second" to distinguish him from an ephemeral third century usurper