Caracalla (198-217)
Aureus - Rome (204)
Rarissime - De très bon style et d’une qualité exceptionnelle.
Exemplaire de la vente Lanz 58 du 21 novembre 1991, N°700 et de la vente Lanz 66 du 22 novembre 1993, N°654 et de la liste Schweizerischer Bankverein du 1 juillet 1994, N°13 et de la vente Rauch 53 des 28 et 29 novembre 1994, N°294 et de la vente Aureo & Calicó 252 du 28 mai 2013, N°76
7.25g - Cal. 2668
FDC Exceptionnel - CHOICE MS
The reverse legend indicates explicitly that the coin commemorates the Ludi Saeculares which were held in AD 204 by Septimius Severus (Caracalla’s father). It was a privilege to be able to organize those games, meant to happen at most once during a human lifetime – that is 110 years according to an Etruscan tradition. In Imperial times, the games took place in 17 BC under Augustus, and again in AD 88 under Domitian who advanced their date by eight years. Another set of games was introduced by Claudius in AD 47, repeated by Antoninus Pius in AD 147/148, and again by Philip the Arab in AD 247/248 for the millennium of Rome.
There were other issues by Severus that depict the Secular Games, but this emission instead show Hercules and Liber Pater, the Roman equivalents of the Punic gods Melqart and Shadrapa who were the guardian deities of Lepcis Magna (in modern Libya), the birthplace of Severus. Recent evidence proves that Severus did not revisit his hometown before AD 207, so C. Rowan has suggested that the denarius which depicts the two gods in an identical position, but with the legend DI PATRII, was probably struck when they became “gods of the patria” in Rome – possibly after the construction (related by Dio Cassius) of a large temple in their honour.