Item: i9449

Certified Authentic Ancient Roman Coin of:

Elagabalus - Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D. -
Bronze 16mm (2.5 grams) from Markianopolis in Moesia Inferior 218-222 A.D.
AVT K M AVP ANTΩNINOC, Laureate head right.
MARKIANOΠOΛITΩN, Serpent emerging from half-open cista right.

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

Serpents and snakes play a role in many of the world's myths and legends. Sometimes these mythic beasts appear as ordinary snakes. At other times, they take on magical or monstrous forms. Serpents and snakes have long been associated with good as well as with evil, representing both life and death, creation and destruction.

Serpents and Snakes as Symbols. In religion, mythology, and literature, serpents and snakes often stand for fertility or a creative life force—partly because the creatures can be seen as symbols of the male sex organ. They have also been associated with water and earth because many kinds of snakes live in the water or in holes in the ground. The ancient Chinese connected serpents with life-giving rain. Traditional beliefs in Australia, India, North America, and Africa have linked snakes with rainbows, which in turn are often related to rain and fertility.

As snakes grow, many of them shed their skin at various times, revealing a shiny new skin underneath. For this reason snakes have become symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing. The ancient Greeks considered snakes sacred to Asclepius, the god of medicine. He carried a caduceus, a staff with one or two serpents wrapped around it, which has become the symbol of modern physicians.

For both the Greeks and the Egyptians, the snake represented eternity. Ouroboros, the Greek symbol of eternity, consisted of a snake curled into a circle or hoop, biting its own tail. The Ouroboros grew out of the belief that serpents eat themselves and are reborn from themselves in an endless cycle of destruction and creation.

Marcianopolis, or Marcianople was an ancient Roman city in Thracia. It was located at the site of modern day Devnya, Bulgaria.

The city was so renamed by Emperor Trajan after his sister Ulpia Marciana, and was previously known as Parthenopolis. Romans repulsed a Gothic attack to this town in 267 (or 268), during the reign of Gallienus. Diocletian made it the capital of the Moesia Secunda province.

Valens made it his winter quarters in 368 and succeeding years, Emperor Justinian I restored and fortified it. In 587, it was sacked by the king of the Avars but at once retaken by the Romans. The Roman army quartered there in 596 before crossing the Danube to assault the Avars.

Between 893 and 972 it was one of the most important medieval cities in south-eastern Europe.


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. 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." "The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life," wrote B.G. Niebuhr.
 

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