Septimius Severus: Silver denarius Coinage

Coinage Scope and Selected Issues

The Silver denarius coinage issued in the name of Septimius Severus includes issues distinguished by their portraits, inscriptions, reverse designs and mint attribution. This study concentrates on the HERCVLI DEFENS issues, rather than presenting one design as the entire denomination.

The issue dates and detailed iconographic descriptions below apply to the discussed groups, not automatically to every coin bearing the ruler's name. Other types and mints require their own catalogue comparison. An individual gallery coin must be assessed from its own inscriptions and institutional record; its measurements and provenance do not define the whole coinage.

Historical Context

The year 197 CE marked the decisive resolution of the protracted civil wars that erupted following the assassination of Commodus in late 192 CE and the swift collapse of the successive regimes of Pertinax and Didius Julianus. Having eliminated his eastern rival Pescennius Niger following the Battle of Issus in 194 CE, Lucius Septimius Severus confronted his former western ally and Caesar, Decimus Clodius Albinus. Tensions intensified after Severus elevated his elder son, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla), to the rank of Caesar in 195/196 CE, effectively breaking his pact with Albinus. Albinus was proclaimed Augustus by his legions, rallying military support across Britain, Gaul, and Spain.

The conflict reached its climax on 19 February 197 CE at the Battle of Lugdunum (modern Lyon), documented as one of the largest and most destructive engagements fought between Roman forces. Severus's decisive victory ended organized internal armed resistance, led to Albinus's demise, and left the Severan dynasty in uncontested control of the empire. Almost immediately following this victory, Severus mobilized imperial forces toward the eastern frontier to inaugurate the Second Parthian War in late 197 CE, relieving the besieged fortress of Nisibis and culminating in the sack of Ctesiphon around late 197 or early 198 CE.

Sustaining this intense military footprint required massive fiscal liquidity. Severus instituted an unprecedented increase in basic legionary pay, raising annual compensation from 300 to 450 denarii alongside substantial accession and victory donatives. To support these expenditures, the administration executed an extensive debasement of the central silver currency. Elemental analyses conducted by Haim Gitler and Matthew Ponting demonstrate that between 194 and 195 CE, the mean silver fineness of the denarius at Rome was reduced from the prevailing Antonine and Commodian baseline of roughly 70-75 percent down to approximately 46-55 percent silver, alloyed predominantly with copper. To maintain monetary acceptance and present an attractive initial appearance, freshly cast planchets were subjected to surface-depletion blanching, an acid or organic pickling bath that dissolved base metal oxides from the flan surface, leaving a thin, silver-enriched exterior layer that resisted visible degradation during early circulation.

Selected Issues: Obverse Iconographic Composition

The obverse displays a mature, right-facing portrait of Septimius Severus crowned with a laurel wreath tied at the nape of the neck with two falling ribbons. In the stylistic evolution of the central mint of Rome, portraits struck after 195 CE deliberately abandoned the stark, veristic, short-bearded military iconography of the earliest civil-war issues in favor of Antonine visual continuity.

This stylistic shift mirrored Severus's self-proclaimed retroactive adoption into the Antonine lineage in 195 CE as the son of the deified Marcus Aurelius and brother of the deified Commodus. Severus adopted Marcus Aurelius's characteristic philosophical beard, defined by thick, undulating locks parted along the jawline and chin, complemented by tiered curls across the forehead. The bust is depicted bare, with neither drapery nor armor, directing viewer attention entirely to the imperial visage.

Selected Issues: Obverse Epigraphy and Inscriptions

Denarii of this central issue carry a continuous clockwise peripheral Latin inscription:

L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VIIII

• Script: Latin (epigraphic majuscule)
• Language: Latin
• Original Lettering Supplied by Consulted Sources: L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VIIII
• Epigraphic Transliteration: L(ucius) Sept(imius) Sev(erus) Pert(inax) Aug(ustus) Imp(erator) VIIII
• English Translation: "Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax Augustus, Supreme Commander for the ninth time"
• Placement: Circumferential legend running clockwise along the flan boundary from approximately 7:00 to 5:00
• Chronological Diagnostic: The acclamation formula IMP VIIII (Imperator Nonum) confines this specific central issue to the year 197 CE. It forms an explicit chronological horizon between the earlier IMP VIII series of 196-197 CE and the subsequent IMP X series inaugurated around late 197 or early 198 CE following eastern operations.

Selected Issues: Reverse Iconographic Composition

The reverse composition features a standing, fully nude figure of Hercules (the Greek Herakles), depicted with his body turned slightly to the right and his head shown entirely in right profile.

The demigod is accompanied by three attributes drawn from standard Hellenistic sculptural traditions:

1. The Knotted Club: Held vertically in Hercules's right hand, resting directly on the ground behind his right foot, acting as an anchor for his stance.
2. The Recurved Bow: Grasped in his extended left hand at waist level.
3. The Nemean Lion Skin (leonte): Draped across the left forearm, hanging in heavy, stylized vertical folds, symbolizing his First Labor and divine invulnerability.

The sculptural pose echoes classical and Hellenistic models, notably the resting Herakles type popularized by statues such as the Farnese Hercules, presenting the hero at rest yet fully prepared for combat.

Selected Issues: Reverse Epigraphy and Inscriptions

The reverse features an abbreviated dedicatory Latin legend divided across the peripheral fields:

HERCVLI DEFENS

• Script: Latin (epigraphic majuscule)
• Language: Latin
• Original Lettering Supplied by Consulted Sources: HERCVLI DEFENS
• Epigraphic Transliteration: Herculi Defens(ori)
• English Translation: "To Hercules the Defender"
• Placement: Running clockwise along the rim; HERCVLI is placed in the left field (reading upwards from approximately 7:30 to 11:30), while DEFENS descends through the right field (from approximately 12:30 to 4:30).
• Grammatical Function: The dative form Herculi marks the coin type as an explicit imperial dedication or votive invocation to Hercules under his specialized role as protector and champion.

Typology and Documented Variants

The HERCVLI DEFENS reverse type constituted a cohesive ideological emission produced at the mint of Rome across three consecutive imperial acclamations:

1. Predecessor Issue (196-197 CE) - RIC IV.1 79:

• Obverse Legend: L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VIII (Laureate head right)
• Reverse Legend: HERCVLI DEFENS (Hercules standing right, club on ground, bow, lion skin)
• Metal and Denomination: Silver denarius; recorded in BMCRE V, p. 44, no. 147 and Cohen 210.

2. Standard Issue (197 CE) - RIC IV.1 97:

• Obverse Legend: L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VIIII (Laureate head right)
• Reverse Legend: HERCVLI DEFENS (Hercules standing right, club on ground, bow, lion skin)
• Metal and Denomination: Silver denarius; recorded in BMCRE V, p. 55, no. 218 and Cohen 212. Also struck in gold as an aureus (Calicó 2465).

3. Successor Issue (Late 197-198 CE) - RIC IV.1 111:

• Obverse Legend: L SEPT SEV PART AVG IMP X (Laureate head right, incorporating the Parthian victory title Parthicus)
• Reverse Legend: HERCVLI DEFENS (Hercules standing right, club on ground, bow, lion skin)
• Metal and Denomination: Silver denarius; recorded in Cohen 214. Also struck in gold as an aureus.

This sequence is confined strictly to the central mint of Rome. Contemporary provincial and military eastern Severan emissions (historically attributed to stationary mints at "Laodicea ad Mare" or "Emesa", but re-evaluated in modern research as Syrian traveling workshops and Antioch) utilized distinct engraving techniques, different letter punches, and alternative ideological programs.

Scholarly Debates and Attribution Limitations

1. The Ideological Mandate of 'Hercules Defensor': Harold Mattingly suggested that invoking Hercules under the rare epithet Defensor was intended as an appeal for divine protection during the acute military crisis posed by Clodius Albinus's march toward Italy. In her study of Severan religious ideology, Clare Rowan established that the Severan administration paired the ancestral tutelary deities of Severus's native Leptis Magna, Liber Pater (Shadrapa) and Hercules (Melqart), with distinct geopolitical arenas. While Liber Pater (associated with the Dionysiac conquest of the Orient) was deployed against Pescennius Niger in the East, Hercules, the civilizing Western hero whose mythical labors encompassed Gaul and Iberia, was mobilized specifically as the divine counterpart to Decimus Clodius Albinus in the West. Rowan observed that Hercules simultaneously reinforced Severus's Antonine lineage, alluding to Commodus's Herculean patronage while avoiding Commodus's personal identification as the god incarnate.

2. The Military Trigger for Acclamation IMP VIIII: Scholars continue to debate whether imperial acclamation IMP VIIII was assumed for the victory at Lugdunum on 19 February 197 CE or for an initial engagement of the Second Parthian War, such as the relief of Nisibis later that year. Roman constitutional tradition routinely discouraged formal imperial acclamations celebrating victories in civil war over Roman citizens. Nevertheless, Severan propaganda frequently obscured civil conflict under slogans of public security and restored order. Because ancient narrative accounts (Dio Cassius, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta) preserve no direct correlation for Acclamation IX, numismatists recognize both hypotheses as plausible historical triggers.

3. Eastern vs. Central Mint Attribution Frameworks: Early twentieth-century reference catalogues (such as RIC IV.1) categorized vast quantities of Severan denarii under fixed Syrian municipal facilities, notably "Laodicea" and "Emesa". Subsequent die studies and hoard analyses, particularly those by Roger A. Bickford-Smith, demonstrated that these classifications were largely arbitrary and that eastern production moved between mobile legionary facilities and permanent mints such as Antioch and Alexandria. For the HERCVLI DEFENS series, however, stylistic analysis, epigraphic style, and die continuity confirm that the type belongs exclusively to the metropolitan mint of Rome.

References

1. The Art Institute of Chicago: Denarius (Coin) Portraying Emperor Septimius Severus. Accession 1920.1008 (Artwork ID 141840)
2. Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE): RIC IV Septimius Severus 97 (denarius). ric.4.ss.97_denarius
3. British Museum Collection Online: Denarius of Septimius Severus, Rome, 197 CE. Registration 1898,0204.13 / BMCRE V, p. 55, no. 218
4. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume IV, Part 1: Pertinax to Geta and Caracalla (AD 193-217). p. 100, no. 79; p. 102, no. 97; p. 104, no. 111
5. Description historique des monnaies frappées sous l'Empire Romain, Tome IV. p. 25, no. 210, 212, 214
6. The Silver Coinage of Septimius Severus and His Family (AD 193-211): A Study of the Chemical Composition of the Roman and Eastern Issues. pp. 55-57
7. Under Divine Auspices: Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period. pp. 65-78
8. The Imperial Mints in the East for Septimius Severus: It is Time to Begin a Thorough Reconsideration. Rivista Italiana di Numismatica e Scienze Affini 96 (1994-1995), pp. 53-71