Commodus Gold Aureus RIC III Commodus 247

Monetary Context and Imperial Policy

Under Commodus, the Roman monetary system experienced mounting fiscal pressure caused by court expenditures, military donatives, and lavish gladiatorial spectacles. While the silver denarius suffered gradual debasements in weight and fineness across the Antonine period, the gold aureus remained the bedrock of commercial security and state prestige. By AD 192, the aureus was struck at an average theoretical standard of approximately 7.2 to 7.3 grams (roughly 45 coins to the Roman pound), maintaining an essential purity that preserved international confidence in Roman gold. Despite economic strains, high-denomination gold coins like RIC III Commodus 247 were indispensable tools for court patronage, distributed as substantial donatives to the Praetorian Guard, senatorial loyalists, and favored equestrians. In the tumultuous final year of his reign, Commodus mobilized the gold coinage to broadcast a total religious reinvention of the Roman state, transforming imperial currency into a vehicle for his personal cult and the mythic renewal of the empire.

Production and Mint Organization

RIC III Commodus 247 was produced exclusively at the single central imperial mint in Rome. During the late second century AD, the Rome mint was organized into several operative workshops (officinae), which handled both base and precious metals with specialized die-cutting teams. Gold aurei demanded the highest caliber of craftsmanship, and the dies prepared for Commodus's late Hercules issues show exceptional plastic modeling, high relief, and intricate miniature rendering. The dies for RIC III Commodus 247 were likely cut by master celators within the palace-supervised mint division, who simultaneously prepared celebratory gold medallions. Mint workers employed prepared gold blanks heated and struck between hardened bronze or iron dies, with the reverse upper die absorbing the hammer blows. The surviving corpus of this type exhibits careful centering and meticulous die alignment, reflecting the stringent quality controls enforced during special ceremonial emissions in AD 192.

Obverse Iconography and Imperial Cult

The obverse of RIC III Commodus 247 presents the head of Commodus facing right, enveloped in the skin of the Nemean lion (leonte). Rather than wearing the traditional imperial laurel wreath or radiate crown, the emperor is depicted fully assimilated to the hero-god Hercules. The jaws of the lion skin frame Commodus's forehead, while the paws are tied beneath his chin, their claws rendered in crisp detail against his neck. His facial features retain the characteristic heavy eyelids, prominent nose, and elaborate, deeply curled beard of his late portraiture, closely echoing the famed marble bust from the Esquiline Hill now preserved in the Capitoline Museums. This portraiture broke decisively with the stoic, philosophical modesty favored by his father Marcus Aurelius, announcing instead an unmediated divine incarnation wherein the reigning princeps reigned not merely by the favor of Hercules, but as the living Hercules Romanus himself.

Reverse Iconography: The Sacred Furrow

The reverse depicts Hercules, wearing the lion skin over his shoulders, driving a yoke of two oxen to the left while holding his distinctive knobby club. This composition portrays the ancient ritual of the sulcus primigenius, the sacred furrow plowed by a city founder to demarcate the new urban boundary (pomerium). In Roman civic tradition, this act evoked the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus. On RIC III Commodus 247, however, Hercules replaces both Romulus and the traditional togatus founder. Commodus had proclaimed that the city of Rome, partially devastated by fire earlier in his reign, was reborn as Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana. By depicting Hercules guiding the plow with the club in hand, the reverse conflates heroic force and civic renewal, commemorating the formal refoundation of Rome under the patronage and persona of the emperor.

Epigraphy and Legend Analysis

The legends on RIC III Commodus 247 are concise and highly programmatic. The obverse inscription reads L AEL AVREL COMM AVG P FEL, expanding to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Pius Felix. This formula reflects his official renaming in AD 191, when he dropped the praenomen Marcus to adopt Lucius (honoring Lucius Verus) and embraced the joint honorific titles Pius Felix as integral components of his imperial nomenclature. The reverse legend reads HER ROM COND COS VII P P, an abbreviation for Herculi Romano Conditori, Consul VII, Pater Patriae. Dedicated either to Hercules Romanus the Founder or to Commodus in that divine capacity, the inscription confirms his seventh consulship, which commenced on January 1, AD 192. The combination of Conditor (Founder) with the traditional civic title Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland) explicitly linked his political authority to the sacral refoundation of the capital.

Typology and Chronological Placement

The emission of RIC III Commodus 247 can be dated securely to AD 192, bounded by Commodus's entry into his seventh consulship on January 1 and his assassination on the night of December 31. Within Commodus's Heraklean coinage, this type forms the gold counterpart to equivalent denarii (such as RIC III 247 note and related silver variants like RIC III 254) and rare bronze medallions featuring the plowing motif. Numismatists have suggested that the Hercules Romanus Conditor series was struck during the latter half of AD 192, coinciding with the public festivals and ceremonies celebrating the new golden age of Commodiana. While the general design of the founder plowing with oxen was an established type on Roman provincial and colonial issues, its adaptation on imperial gold with Herculean attributes was unique to this immediate historical moment, terminating abruptly upon the emperor's death.

Distribution and Monetary Circulation

Aurei of RIC III Commodus 247 enjoyed an exceptionally brief window of active release before political catastrophe struck the regime. Intended primarily for high-level imperial presentations, festive distributions, and military bonuses in the capital, these aurei circulated among elite networks across Italy and major provincial administrative centers. Following Commodus's murder, the Roman Senate decreed damnatio memoriae, stripping his name from public monuments and revoking the designation Colonia Commodiana. While imperial gold was generally too valuable to be systematically melted down or recalled at state expense, hoard evidence across the Roman world indicates that many of these late gold coins remained in circulation or were quickly sequestered into private savings hoards. The high state of preservation found on surviving specimens suggests that numerous pieces were treasured as exotic heirlooms or held back from commercial friction during the civil wars of the Year of the Five Emperors in AD 193.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. IV: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. p. 752, no. 347
2. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. III: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. p. 392, no. 247
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC III Commodus 247. RIC III Commodus 247