Item: i8804

Certified Authentic Ancient Roman Coin of:

Elagabalus - Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D. -
Bronze 25mm (11.1 grams) Odessos, Thrace mint: 218-222 A.D.
Reference: Sear GIC 3041; B.M.C. 3.139,15
AVT K M AVPHΛI ANTΩNEINOC, laureate head right.
OΔHCCEITΩN, The Great God of Odessus standing left, holding patera and cornucopia.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Thracians populated the area densely by 1200 BC. Miletians founded the apoikia (trading colony) of Odessos towards the end of the 7th century BC (the earliest Greek archaeological material is dated 600-575 BC), or, according to Pseudo-Scymnus, in the time of Astyages (here, usually 572-570 BC is suggested), within an earlier Thracian settlement. The name Odessos, first attested by Strabo, was pre-Greek, perhaps of Carian origin. A member of the Pontic Pentapolis, Odessos was a mixed Greco-Thracian community—contact zone between the Ionians and the Thracians (Getae, Crobyzi, Terizi) of the hinterland. Excavations at nearby Thracian sites have shown uninterrupted occupation from the 7th to the 4th century and close commercial relations with the colony. The Greek alphabet has been applied to inscriptions in Thracian since at least the 5th century BCE; the Hellenistic city worshipped a Thracian great god whose cult survived well into the Roman period.

Odessos presumably was included in the assessment of the Delian league of 425 BC. In 339 BC, it was unsuccessfully besieged by Philip II (priests of the Getae persuaded him to conclude a treaty) but surrendered to Alexander the Great in 335 BC, and was later ruled by his diadochus Lysimachus, against whom it rebelled in 313 BC as part of a coalition with other Pontic cities and the Getae. The Roman city, Odessus, first included into the Praefectura orae maritimae and then in 15 AD annexed to the province of Moesia (later Moesia Inferior), covered 47 hectares in present-day central Varna and had prominent public baths, Thermae, erected in the late 2nd century AD, now the largest Roman remains in Bulgaria (the building was 100 m wide, 70 m long, and 25 m high) and fourth-largest known Roman baths in Europe. Major athletic games were held every five years, possibly attended by Gordian III in 238 AD.

Odessus was an early Christian centre, as testified by ruins of ten early basilicas,[6] a monophysite monastery, and indications that one of the Seventy Disciples, Ampliatus, follower of Saint Andrew (who, according to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church legend, preached in the city in 56 AD), served as bishop there. In 6th-century imperial documents, it was refereed to as "holiest city," sacratissima civitas. In 442, a peace treaty between Theodosius II and Attila was done at Odessus. In 536, Justinian I made it the seat of the Quaestura exercitus ruled by a prefect of Scythia and including Moesia, Scythia, Caria, the Aegean Islands and Cyprus. The Jireček Line, or the approximate linguistic frontier between Latin and Greek linguistic influence, ran through the Balkans from Odessus to the Adriatic.


Elagabalus (pronounced El-uh-GAB-uh-lus, c. 203 – March 11, 222), also known as Heliogabalus or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, was a Roman Emperor of the Severan dynasty who reigned from 218 to 222. Born Varius Avitus Bassianus, he was Syrian on his mother's side, the son of Julia Soaemias and Sextus Varius Marcellus, and in his early youth he served as a priest of the god El-Gabal at his hometown, Emesa. Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, and was called Elagabalus only a long time after his death.

In 217, the emperor Caracalla was murdered and replaced by his Praetorian prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Caracalla's maternal aunt, Julia Maesa, successfully instigated a revolt among the Third Legion to have her eldest grandson, Elagabalus, declared as emperor in his place. Macrinus was defeated on June 8, 218, at the Battle of Antioch, upon which Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old, ascended to the imperial power and began a reign that was marred by infamous controversies, to put it mildly.

During his rule, Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He was married as many as five times and is reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. Elagabalus replaced Jupiter, head of the Roman pantheon, with a new god, Deus Sol Invictus, and forced leading members of Rome's government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, which he personally led.

Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, only 18 years old, was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Alexander Severus on March 11, 222, in a plot formed by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and members of the Praetorian Guard. Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for eccentricity, decadence, and zealotry which was likely exaggerated by his successors and political rivals.[1] This propaganda was passed on and, as a result, he was one of the most reviled Roman emperors to early historians. For example, Edward Gibbon wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury."[2] "The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life," wrote B.G. Niebuhr.[3]
 

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