Roma Numismatics Ltd
E-Sale 85 17 Jun 2021
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Commodus Æ Sestertius. Rome, AD 192. [L • A]EL • AVREL • COMM • AVG • [P • FEL], head to right, wearing lion skin headdress / Upright club of Hercules; HERCVL ROMANO AVGV S C in four lines across fields; all within wreath with large central jewel. RIC III 637; C. 192; Banti 96; BMCRE 71. 26.64g, 33mm, 12h.
Near Very Fine; heavy cleaning marks. A rare and interesting type highlighting the megalomania of Commodus.
From the Antonio Carmona Collection.
Commodus is often credited by the ancient sources with the near destruction of the Roman Empire, through a combination of disinterest in governance and an all-consuming belief that he was of god-like status. With his accession, says the contemporary historian Cassius Dio, the history of the Roman Empire descended from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust, as affairs did for the Romans of that day (LXXII.36.4).
By the latter years of his reign when this sestertius was struck, Commodus believed Hercules was his divine patron, and he worshipped him so intensely that eventually he came to believe himself an incarnation of the mythological hero, thus reinforcing the image he was cultivating of himself as a demigod who, as the son of Jupiter, was the representative of the supreme god of the Roman pantheon. The growing megalomania of the emperor permeated all areas of Roman life, as is witnessed in the material record by the innumerable statues erected around the empire portraying him in the guise of Hercules, and his coinage.
Near Very Fine; heavy cleaning marks. A rare and interesting type highlighting the megalomania of Commodus.
From the Antonio Carmona Collection.
Commodus is often credited by the ancient sources with the near destruction of the Roman Empire, through a combination of disinterest in governance and an all-consuming belief that he was of god-like status. With his accession, says the contemporary historian Cassius Dio, the history of the Roman Empire descended from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust, as affairs did for the Romans of that day (LXXII.36.4).
By the latter years of his reign when this sestertius was struck, Commodus believed Hercules was his divine patron, and he worshipped him so intensely that eventually he came to believe himself an incarnation of the mythological hero, thus reinforcing the image he was cultivating of himself as a demigod who, as the son of Jupiter, was the representative of the supreme god of the Roman pantheon. The growing megalomania of the emperor permeated all areas of Roman life, as is witnessed in the material record by the innumerable statues erected around the empire portraying him in the guise of Hercules, and his coinage.