Elagabalus Silver Denarius RIC IV Elagabalus 27

Monetary Context and Economic Background

During the reign of Elagabalus (AD 218 to 222), the Roman monetary system functioned under the severe structural pressures inherited from the Caracallan and Macrinian administrations. The denarius, which had served as the foundational silver denomination of the empire since the late third century BC, was struck under a degraded silver standard. Following Septimius Severus's debasement to approximately fifty percent silver and Caracalla's further adjustments, the denarius of Elagabalus operated at a mean weight of roughly 3.1 grams with an average fineness fluctuating between forty-two and forty-six percent silver. Although Caracalla had introduced the double denarius or antoninianus in AD 215, the denarius continued to circulate vigorously and constituted the principal medium for imperial disbursements, military pay, and bureaucratic administration. Under Elagabalus, the Rome mint struck denarii in vast quantities. The issuance of RIC IV Elagabalus 27 in AD 220 coincided with the celebration of the emperor's third consulship, entered alongside Publius Valerius Comazon. The denomination remained the cornerstone of everyday commerce across the Mediterranean, retaining its fiduciary role within an increasingly inflationary fiscal environment where production volumes compensated for diminished intrinsic metal content.

Production, Technology, and Mint Attribution

RIC IV Elagabalus 27 was manufactured exclusively at the primary imperial mint located in Rome. The administrative infrastructure of the Rome mint at this period was organized into distinct officinae or workshops, each responsible for producing designated reverse types across regular imperial emissions. Production employed traditional hand-striking techniques, wherein cast silver blanks, prepared from debased silver alloy melts, were heated and placed between an engraved anvil die and an upper punch die. The dies were crafted by skilled imperial celators who maintained a high level of technical uniformity, though minor variations in bust truncation, drapery folds, and the posture of Jupiter reflect the individual hands of different engravers. Die alignment typically exhibits an upright or inverted orientation (commonly six or twelve o'clock), characteristic of Severan mechanical practices. The metallurgical composition of the flans shows the continued practice of surface enrichment, a chemical blanching process in which base metal oxides were leached out with acid prior to striking, giving the finished denarii a brighter, more silver-rich exterior appearance than their interior alloy warranted.

Obverse Iconography and Imperial Image

The obverse of RIC IV Elagabalus 27 presents a youthful bust of the emperor facing right, laureate and draped. The portrait reflects the idealized continuation of the Antonine and Severan lineage, designed to project dynastic legitimacy following the brief interregnum of Macrinus. Elagabalus is rendered with soft facial features, tight curly hair beneath the laurel wreath, and a smooth jawline, capturing his mid-adolescence. The drapery covers the shoulders and chest, often gathered in classical folds over a tunic and paludamentum. Unlike issues from the end of his reign in AD 221 and 222, which occasionally introduce an exotic horn or phallus-like attribute above the forehead to denote his priestly status in the cult of Elagabal of Emesa, the portrait on RIC IV 27 adheres strictly to mainstream Roman imperial conventions. Engravers at the Rome mint followed models standardized during Caracalla's early reign, reinforcing the fiction that Elagabalus was Caracalla's natural son and legitimate heir to the Severan purple.

Reverse Iconography and Religious Symbolism

The reverse design features the supreme tutelary deity of the Roman state, Jupiter, seated facing left on a throne. The god is depicted naked to the waist, draped around the lower limbs in the classical manner of monumental cult statuary derived from Phidian archetypes. In his outstretched right hand, Jupiter holds a diminutive, winged Victory, who presents a wreath toward the god, symbolizing divine favor, triumphal authority, and the preservation of imperial rule. In his raised left hand, Jupiter grasps a vertical sceptre or staff of sovereignty. At his feet to the left stands an attendant eagle, with head turned back toward the god, embodying the divine auspices and celestial guardianship of the Roman Empire. This visual program is profoundly traditional. While modern historical assessments often emphasize Elagabalus's devotion to the Syrian sun-god, the official emissions of the Rome mint in AD 220, as evidenced by RIC IV 27, prioritized Jupiter Optimus Maximus. This classicizing image offered public reassurance to the Senate and the Roman citizenry that the central state religion remained intact and that the young prince governed under the patronage of Rome's ancestral protector.

Epigraphy and Titulature

The legends on RIC IV Elagabalus 27 are engraved in clear Roman capitals, arranged in uninterrupted arcs along the inner beaded borders. The obverse reads IMP ANTONINVS AVG, an abbreviated formulation that emphasizes the core imperial titles: Imperator (military commander-in-chief), Antoninus (the dynastic surname adopted to claim paternal descent from Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius), and Augustus (the supreme imperial honorific). The reverse legend, P M TR P III COS III P P, provides an explicit chronological and constitutional matrix. The formula expands to Pontifex Maximus (chief priest of the Roman state religion), Tribunicia Potestate Tertium (exercising tribunician power for the third time), Consul Tertium (consul for the third time), and Pater Patriae (father of the fatherland). The epigraphic execution is standardized, with balanced letter spacing, though individual dies occasionally demonstrate minor ligatures or slight variations in letter size depending on the available circumference of the die.

Typology, Dating, and Serial Context

The dating of RIC IV Elagabalus 27 is firmly anchored to AD 220 by the combination of the third tribunician power and the third consulship. Elagabalus assumed his first tribunician power upon his accession in AD 218, renewed it to TR P II in AD 219, and advanced to TR P III in AD 220. Concurrently, he assumed his third ordinary consulship on January 1, AD 220. The type is categorized within Harold Mattingly and Edward Sydenham's Roman Imperial Coinage series as RIC IV Part II, Elagabalus number 27, cross-referenced in the British Museum catalogue under BMC 178-181. It forms part of a coordinated series of seated and standing divine reverse types produced in AD 220 that included representations of Roma, Mars, and Sol. While RIC IV 27 specifically designates the draped bust type, slight die variants exist in which the drapery appears only over the far shoulder or includes a cuirass beneath, although standard cataloguing treats these as stylistic die variations of the primary type rather than discrete typological emissions.

Hoard Evidence, Circulation, and Survival

Denarii of RIC IV Elagabalus 27 entered widespread circulation immediately upon production, circulating throughout Italy and the militarized frontier provinces along the Rhine and Danube. Because the silver content of the Severan denarius had become substantially debased, older denarii dating prior to the reforms of Septimius Severus were increasingly hoarded or withdrawn, leaving Severan coins to dominate the active circulating pool. Specimen survivals in major coin hoards, such as the Reka Devnia hoard in Bulgaria, demonstrate that denarii of AD 220 were struck in considerable volume and remained in commercial use for decades. Many specimens exhibit moderate to heavy wear, indicating that they continued to circulate alongside issues of Severus Alexander and Gordian III until the massive hyperinflation and total debasement of the mid-third century caused the denarius to disappear entirely from regular transactions. Today, the type is well attested in institutional collections and numismatic corpora, offering an enduring witness to the conservative political messaging deployed by the imperial administration during an otherwise turbulent reign.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. V: Pertinax to Elagabalus. pp. 549-550, nos. 178-181
2. Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire. pp. 120-135
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC IV Elagabalus 27. ric.4.el.27
4. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. IV, Part II: Macrinus to Pupienus. p. 30, no. 27