ANTONINUS PIUS 145AD Alexandria in Egypt Ancient Roman Coin Dolphin i41498

Description

Item:
i41498
Authentic Ancient Coin of:
Antoninus Pius
-
Roman Emperor
: 138-161 A.D.
Bronze Obol 18mm (3.36 grams) of
Alexandria
in
Egypt
Dated Regnal Year 9, 145/146 A.D.
Reference: Köln -; Emmett 1767
AVT. K. T. AI
Λ. AΔP. ANTWNINOC,
Laureate head right.
L ЄNATOV,
Dolphin entwined around trident.
* Numismatic Note: Extremely rare. Emmett cites only one example of this coin, ANS inv. 1934.73.21 (which he lists as 1935-73-21).
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Alexandria was founded by
Alexander the Great
in April 331 BC as
Ἀλεξάνδρεια
(
Alexándreia
). Alexander's
chief architect
for the project was
Dinocrates
. Alexandria was intended to supersede
Naucratis
as a
Hellenistic
center in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich
Nile Valley
. An Egyptian city,
Rhakotis
, already existed on the shore, and later gave its name to Alexandria in the
Egyptian language
(Egyptian
*Raˁ-Ḳāṭit
, written
rˁ-ḳṭy.t
, 'That which is built up'). It continued to exist as the Egyptian quarter of the city. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt and never returned to his city. After Alexander's departure, his viceroy,
Cleomenes
, continued the expansion. Following a struggle with the other successors of Alexander, his general
Ptolemy
succeeded in bringing Alexander's body to Alexandria.
Alexandria, sphinx made of
pink granite
,
Ptolemaic
.
Although Cleomenes was mainly in charge of overseeing Alexandria's continuous development, the
Heptastadion
and the mainland quarters seem to have been primarily Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined
Tyre
and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the
Arabian
and Indian East, the city grew in less than a generation to be larger than
Carthage
. In a century, Alexandria had become the largest city in the world and, for some centuries more, was second only to Rome. It became Egypt's main Greek city, with
Greek people
from diverse backgrounds.
Alexandria was not only a centre of
Hellenism
, but was also home to the largest Jewish community in the world. The
Septuagint
, a Greek translation of the
Hebrew Bible
, was produced there. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Hellenistic center of learning (
Library of Alexandria
), but were careful to maintain the distinction of its population's three largest ethnicities: Greek, Jewish, and
Egyptian
. From this division arose much of the later turbulence, which began to manifest itself under
Ptolemy Philopater
who reigned from 221–204 BC. The reign of
Ptolemy VIII Physcon
from 144–116 BC was marked by purges and civil warfare..
The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 BC, according to the will of
Ptolemy Alexander
, but only after it had been under Roman influence for more than a hundred years. It was captured by
Julius Caesar
in 47 BC during a Roman intervention in the domestic civil war between king
Ptolemy XIII
and his advisers, and the fabled queen
Cleopatra VII
. It was finally captured by
Octavian
, future
emperor
Augustus on 1 August 30 BC, with the name of the month later being changed to
August
to commemorate his victory.
In AD 115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the
Kitos War
, which gave
Hadrian
and his architect,
Decriannus
, an opportunity to rebuild it. In 215, the
emperor
Caracalla
visited the city and, because of some insulting
satires
that the inhabitants had directed at him, abruptly commanded his troops to
put to death
all youths capable of bearing arms. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a
tsunami
(
365 Crete earthquake
),
[3]
an event still annually commemorated 17 hundred years later as a "day of horror."
[4]
In the late 4th century, persecution of
pagans
by newly Christian Romans had reached new levels of intensity. In 391, the Patriarch
Theophilus
destroyed all pagan temples in Alexandria under orders from Emperor
Theodosius I
. The
Brucheum
and Jewish quarters were desolate in the 5th century. On the mainland, life seemed to have centred in the vicinity of the
Serapeum
and
Caesareum
, both of which became
Christian churches
. The
Pharos
and
Heptastadium
quarters, however, remained populous and were left intact.
[
citation needed
]
In 619, Alexandria
fell
to the
Sassanid Persians
. Although the
Byzantine Emperor
Heraclius
recovered it in 629, in 641 the Arabs under the general
Amr ibn al-As
captured it during the
Muslim conquest of Egypt
, after a siege that lasted 14 months.
Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus
(19 September 86 – 7 March 161), generally known in English as
Antoninus Pius
was
Roman emperor
from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the
Five Good Emperors
and a member of the
Aurelii
. He did not possess the
sobriquet
"
Pius
" until after his accession to the throne. Almost certainly, he earned the name "Pius" because he compelled the
Senate
to deify his adoptive father
Hadrian
; the
Historia Augusta
, however, suggests that he may have earned the name by saving senators sentenced to death by Hadrian in his later years.
//
Early life
Childhood and family
He was the son and only child of
Titus Aurelius Fulvus
,
consul
in 89 whose family came from
Nemausus
(modern
Nîmes
) and was born near
Lanuvium
and his mother was Arria Fadilla. Antoninus’ father and paternal grandfather died when he was young and he was raised by
Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus
, his maternal grandfather, a man of integrity and culture and a friend of
Pliny the Younger
. His mother married to Publius Julius Lupus (a man of consular rank),
Suffect Consul
in 98, and bore him a daughter called Julia Fadilla.
Marriage and children
As a private citizen between 110 and 115, he married Annia Galeria
Faustina the Elder
. They had a very happy marriage. She was the daughter of consul
Marcus Annius Verus
and
Rupilia
Faustina (a half-sister to Roman Empress
Vibia Sabina
). Faustina was a beautiful woman, renowned for her wisdom. She spent her whole life caring for the poor and assisting the most disadvantaged Romans.
Faustina bore Antoninus four children, two sons and two daughters. They were:
Marcus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus (died before 138); his sepulchral inscription has been found at the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome.
Marcus Galerius Aurelius Antoninus (died before 138); his sepulchral inscription has been found at the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome. His name appears on a Greek Imperial coin.
Aurelia Fadilla (died in 135); she married Lucius Lamia Silvanus, consul 145. She appeared to have no children with her husband and her sepulchral inscription has been found in
Italy
.
Annia Galeria Faustina Minor or
Faustina the Younger
(between 125-130-175), a future Roman Empress, married her maternal cousin, future Roman Emperor
Marcus Aurelius
.
When Faustina died in 141, he was in complete mourning and did the following in memory of his wife:
Deified her as a goddess.
Had a temple built in the Roman Forum in her name, with priestesses in the temple.
Had various coins with her portrait struck in her honor. These coins were scripted ‘DIVAE FAUSTINA’ and were elaborately decorated.
He created a charity which he founded and called it
Puellae Faustinianae
or
Girls of Faustina
, which assisted orphaned girls.
Created a new
alimenta
(see
Grain supply to the city of Rome
).
Favour with Hadrian
Having filled with more than usual success the offices of
quaestor
and
praetor
, he obtained the consulship in 120; he was next appointed by the Emperor
Hadrian
as one of the four
proconsuls
to administer
Italia
, then greatly increased his reputation by his conduct as
proconsul
of
Asia
. He acquired much favor with the Emperor Hadrian, who adopted him as his son and successor on 25 February, 138, after the death of his first adopted son
Lucius Aelius
, on the condition that Antoninus would in turn adopt Marcus Annius Verus, the son of his wife's brother, and Lucius, son of Aelius Verus, who afterwards became the emperors
Marcus Aurelius
and
Lucius Verus
(colleague of Marcus Aurelius).
Emperor
On his accession, Antoninus' name became "Imperator Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pontifex Maximus". One of his first acts as Emperor was to persuade the
Senate
to grant divine honours to Hadrian, which they had at first refused; his efforts to persuade the Senate to grant these honours is the most likely reason given for his title of
Pius
(dutiful in affection; compare
pietas
). Two other reasons for this title are that he would support his aged father-in-law with his hand at Senate meetings, and that he had saved those men that Hadrian, during his period of ill-health, had condemned to death. He built temples, theaters, and mausoleums, promoted the arts and sciences, and bestowed honours and financial rewards upon the teachers of
rhetoric
and
philosophy
.
In marked contrast to his predecessors
Trajan
and
Hadrian
, Antoninus was not a military man. One modern scholar has written "It is almost certain not only that at no time in his life did he ever see, let alone command, a Roman army, but that, throughout the twenty-three years of his reign, he never went within five hundred miles of a legion".
[2]
His reign was the most peaceful in the entire history of the
Principate
; while there were several military disturbances throughout the Empire in his time, in
Mauretania
,
Iudaea
, and amongst the
Brigantes
in
Britannia
, none of them are considered serious. The unrest in Britannia is believed to have led to the construction of the
Antonine Wall
from the
Firth of Forth
to the
Firth of Clyde
, although it was soon abandoned. He was virtually unique among emperors in that he dealt with these crises without leaving Italy once during his reign, but instead dealt with provincial matters of war and peace through their governors or through imperial letters to the cities such as Ephesus (of which some were publicly displayed). This style of government was highly praised by his contemporaries and by later generations.
Of the public transactions of this period we have scant information, but, to judge by what we possess, those twenty-two years were not remarkably eventful in comparison to those before and after his; the surviving evidence is not complete enough to determine whether we should interpret, with older scholars, that he wisely curtailed the activities of the Roman Empire to a careful minimum, or perhaps that he was uninterested in events away from Rome and
Italy
and his inaction contributed to the pressing troubles that faced not only Marcus Aurelius but also the emperors of the third century. German historian Ernst Kornemann has had it in his Römische Geschichte [2 vols., ed. by H. Bengtson, Stuttgart 1954] that the reign of Antoninus comprised "a succession of grossly wasted opportunities," given the upheavals that were to come. There is more to this argument, given that the Parthians in the East were themselves soon to make no small amount of mischief after Antoninus' passing. Kornemann's brief is that Antoninus might have waged preventive wars to head off these outsiders.
Scholars place Antoninus Pius as the leading candidate for fulfilling the role as a friend of Rabbi
Judah the Prince
. According to the
Talmud
(Avodah Zarah 10a-b), Rabbi Judah was very wealthy and greatly revered in Rome. He had a close friendship with "Antoninus", possibly Antoninus Pius,
[3]
who would consult Rabbi Judah on various worldly and spiritual matters.
Temple of Antoninus and
Faustina
in the
Roman forum
(now the church of
San Lorenzo in Miranda
). The emperor and his
Augusta
were deified after their death by
Marcus Aurelius
.
After the longest reign since Augustus (surpassing
Tiberius
by a couple of months), Antoninus died of fever at
Lorium
in
Etruria
, about twelve miles (19 km) from Rome, on 7 March 161, giving the keynote to his life in the last word that he uttered when the
tribune
of the night-watch came to ask the password—"aequanimitas" (equanimity). His body was placed in
Hadrian's mausoleum
, a
column
was dedicated to him on the
Campus Martius
, and the
temple
he had built in the Forum in 141 to his deified wife Faustina was rededicated to the deified Faustina and the deified Antoninus.
Historiography
The only account of his life handed down to us is that of the
Augustan History
, an unreliable and mostly fabricated work. Antoninus is unique among Roman emperors in that he has no other biographies. Historians have therefore turned to public records for what details we know.
In later scholarship
Antoninus in many ways was the ideal of the landed gentleman praised not only by ancient Romans, but also by later scholars of classical history, such as
Edward Gibbon
or the author of the article on Antoninus Pius in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannicaca:
A few months afterwards, on Hadrian's death, he was enthusiastically welcomed to the throne by the Roman people, who, for once, were not disappointed in their anticipation of a happy reign. For Antoninus came to his new office with simple tastes, kindly disposition, extensive experience, a well-trained intelligence and the sincerest desire for the welfare of his subjects. Instead of plundering to support his prodigality, he emptied his private treasury to assist distressed provinces and cities, and everywhere exercised rigid economy (hence the nickname κυμινοπριστης "cummin-splitter"). Instead of exaggerating into treason whatever was susceptible of unfavorable interpretation, he spurned the very conspiracies that were formed against him into opportunities for demonstrating his clemency. Instead of stirring up persecution against the Christians, he extended to them the strong hand of his protection throughout the empire. Rather than give occasion to that oppression which he regarded as inseparable from an emperor's progress through his dominions, he was content to spend all the years of his reign in Rome, or its neighborhood.
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