Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXII 7-8 Oct 2021
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Divus Marcus Aurelius AV Aureus. Rome, after 17 March AD 180. DIVVS M ANTONINVS PIVS, bare head to right / CONSECRATIO, four-story funeral pyre garlanded and adorned with statues, emperor in quadriga on top. RIC III 275 (Commodus); C. 96; BMCRE 25 (Commodus); Calicó 1834; CNG Triton XXIV lot 1106 (same obv. die). 7.60g, 21mm, 6h.
Near Mint State; a bold and detailed portrait. Very Rare.
From the Altstetten Collection, kept in the vault of Crédit Suisse Geneva (documentation available upon request) since 26 November 1969.
Marcus Aurelius died at the comparatively young age of 58 on 17 March AD 180 of unknown causes in his military quarters near the city of Sirmium in Pannonia whilst trying to draw to a close the war the against the Germanic tribes, which at this time either must have been either the Expeditio Germanica Secunda or the Expeditio Sarmatica. The Historia Augusta (Life of Marcus Aurelius, II.28) strongly implies that his death was caused by the Antonine Plague (also known as the Plague of Galen) that devastated the empire between AD 165 and 180 and which is likely also to have claimed the life of Aurelius' co-emperor Lucius Verus and the lives of some 5-10 million other Romans.
The HA relates that "he died in the following manner: When he began to grow ill, he summoned his son and besought him first of all not to think lightly of what remained of the war, lest he seem a traitor to the state... Then, being eager to die, he refrained from eating or drinking, and so aggravated the disease. On the sixth day he summoned his friends, and with derision for all human affairs and scorn for death, said to them: "Why do you weep for me, instead of thinking about the pestilence and about death which is the common lot of us all?"... On the seventh day he was weary and admitted only his son, and even him he at once sent away in fear that he would catch the disease. And when his son had gone, he covered his head as though he wished to sleep and during the night he breathed his last. It is said that he foresaw that after his death Commodus would turn out as he actually did, and expressed the wish that his son might die, lest, as he himself said, he should become another Nero, Caligula, or Domitian." Marcus Aurelius was immediately deified and his ashes were returned to Rome, where they rested in Hadrian's mausoleum until the Visigoth sack of the city in 410.
Imperial consecration ceremonies - funerals for emperors who were being deified - were spectacular affairs. A huge and elaborate pyre (or 'ustrinum') was constructed like that on the reverse of the present coin. Above the festooned podium forming the first tier, the second tier contained a chamber, accessed by doors which you can see on the present coin, in which body of the emperor would be placed; tiers two and three were decorated with niches containing statues, and the fourth tier held up a vast wax effigy of the deceased emperor driving a triumphal quadriga, flanked by large torches. When the preliminaries were completed, the pyre would be lit and an eagle released from within it to symbolise the soul of the emperor taking its place amongst the gods in the heavens. The ritual of these ceremonies was often depicted on substantial coinage issues struck by the subsequent emperors in memory and honour of the deification of their predecessor: such coins frequently depict the eagle itself, often physically carrying the emperor skyward, the effigy as it processed to the ceremony on a quadriga of elephants, or the funeral pyre itself, as here.
Near Mint State; a bold and detailed portrait. Very Rare.
From the Altstetten Collection, kept in the vault of Crédit Suisse Geneva (documentation available upon request) since 26 November 1969.
Marcus Aurelius died at the comparatively young age of 58 on 17 March AD 180 of unknown causes in his military quarters near the city of Sirmium in Pannonia whilst trying to draw to a close the war the against the Germanic tribes, which at this time either must have been either the Expeditio Germanica Secunda or the Expeditio Sarmatica. The Historia Augusta (Life of Marcus Aurelius, II.28) strongly implies that his death was caused by the Antonine Plague (also known as the Plague of Galen) that devastated the empire between AD 165 and 180 and which is likely also to have claimed the life of Aurelius' co-emperor Lucius Verus and the lives of some 5-10 million other Romans.
The HA relates that "he died in the following manner: When he began to grow ill, he summoned his son and besought him first of all not to think lightly of what remained of the war, lest he seem a traitor to the state... Then, being eager to die, he refrained from eating or drinking, and so aggravated the disease. On the sixth day he summoned his friends, and with derision for all human affairs and scorn for death, said to them: "Why do you weep for me, instead of thinking about the pestilence and about death which is the common lot of us all?"... On the seventh day he was weary and admitted only his son, and even him he at once sent away in fear that he would catch the disease. And when his son had gone, he covered his head as though he wished to sleep and during the night he breathed his last. It is said that he foresaw that after his death Commodus would turn out as he actually did, and expressed the wish that his son might die, lest, as he himself said, he should become another Nero, Caligula, or Domitian." Marcus Aurelius was immediately deified and his ashes were returned to Rome, where they rested in Hadrian's mausoleum until the Visigoth sack of the city in 410.
Imperial consecration ceremonies - funerals for emperors who were being deified - were spectacular affairs. A huge and elaborate pyre (or 'ustrinum') was constructed like that on the reverse of the present coin. Above the festooned podium forming the first tier, the second tier contained a chamber, accessed by doors which you can see on the present coin, in which body of the emperor would be placed; tiers two and three were decorated with niches containing statues, and the fourth tier held up a vast wax effigy of the deceased emperor driving a triumphal quadriga, flanked by large torches. When the preliminaries were completed, the pyre would be lit and an eagle released from within it to symbolise the soul of the emperor taking its place amongst the gods in the heavens. The ritual of these ceremonies was often depicted on substantial coinage issues struck by the subsequent emperors in memory and honour of the deification of their predecessor: such coins frequently depict the eagle itself, often physically carrying the emperor skyward, the effigy as it processed to the ceremony on a quadriga of elephants, or the funeral pyre itself, as here.