Elagabalus - Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D. -
Bronze 15mm (2.6 grams) from Markianopolis in Moesia Inferior, 218-222 A.D.
AVT K M AVP ANTΩNINOC, Laureate head right.
MARKIANOΠOΛITΩN, Homonoia standing facing, holding patera and cornucopia.
You are bidding on the exact
item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
Guarantee of Authenticity.
Homonoia was a minor goddess of concord, unanimity, and oneness of mind in
classical Greek
culture.
[1] Her opposite number was
Eris (Strife).[1]
She is associated with
Praxidike
the goddess of judicial
punishment,
the exacter of vengeance. Praxidike's daughters were
Arete (a goddess personifying
virtue) and
Harmonia (the very spirit of concord). As such Homonoia was probably closely
identified with the Theban Goddess-Queen
Harmonia .
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.
|