Septimius Severus Denarius RIC IV Septimius Severus 135Ab

Monetary Context

The production of the denarius under Septimius Severus took place against a backdrop of deep structural adjustment in Roman public finance. The early years of his reign had been dominated by destructive civil wars against Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, and Clodius Albinus, followed immediately by extensive foreign operations in the East. These military endeavors, coupled with significant increases in basic legionary pay and generous accession and triumphal donatives, placed unprecedented pressure on the imperial aerarium and fiscus. To sustain these commitments without triggering sovereign default, the Severan administration undertook a major debasement of the silver currency around AD 194 to 195. The intrinsic silver content of the denarius was lowered from the previous Antonine level of approximately seventy percent to an alloy hovering around fifty to fifty-five percent silver, balanced primarily with copper. Within this constrained financial landscape, the invocation of Moneta was an important political declaration. Choosing to portray the deity of legitimate coin production on official issues reassured soldiers and civilian populations that, despite the visible change in alloy, the state guaranteed the institutional integrity, weight regulation, and official purchasing value of its silver coinage.

Production and Mints

The variety RIC IV Septimius Severus 135Ab was struck exclusively at the central imperial mint of Rome. In the opening years of the Severan principate, active eastern branch mints operated at cities such as Antioch, Alexandria, and Laodicea ad Mare to supply regional armies directly. However, by AD 197 and 198, centralized production in the capital once again supplied the bulk of standard imperial denominations. Production in Rome relied on cast circular flans of ternary or binary debased silver, which were heated prior to striking to improve metal flow into deeply cut iron or bronze dies. Celators at Rome executed dies under tight artistic supervision, producing regular letterforms and balanced compositions enclosed within border rings of fine dots. Silver denarii of this issue typically weigh between 3.0 and 3.3 grams, with diameters varying between 18 and 20 millimeters. Because individual flans were measured al marco across large batches rather than weighed one by one to strict individual tolerances, specimens naturally display minor fluctuations in flan thickness and strike centering.

Obverse Design

The obverse design displays a right-facing portrait of Septimius Severus, truncated neatly at the neck without cuirass or military mantle. His head is adorned with a civic laurel wreath tied at the occiput, with two fabric ribbons extending downward across the back of the neck. The portrait reflects the established visual convention developed by Roman engravers around AD 197 to celebrate Severus as a triumphant general and legitimate heir to the Antonine dynasty. The features include thick corkscrew curls across the crown and temples, prominent brow ridges, deeply set eyes, and a full, segmented beard parted into distinct curls. This aesthetic explicitly recalled the mature portraits of Marcus Aurelius, whom Severus declared as his adoptive father in AD 195 to solidify his family claim to imperial legitimacy.

Reverse Design

The reverse iconography depicts the personification Moneta seated in profile facing left. She is seated upon a backless diphros or curule seat, dressed in a traditional long stola reaching her ankles and a draped palla gathered around her torso. In her extended right hand, she suspends a pair of balance scales, an attribute signifying exact measurement, metallurgical equity, and honest calculation during the refining and minting processes. In her left arm, Moneta cradles a large cornucopiae, the horn of plenty bursting with agricultural produce, symbolizing the material abundance, economic health, and civic security flowing from sound state administration. While Roman Imperial Coinage catalogues a related variant depicting Moneta standing, sub-type 135Ab is strictly distinguished by this seated posture, which conveys stability, enduring order, and sedentary majesty.

Inscriptions and Epigraphy

The obverse inscription reads L SEPT SEV AVG IMP XI PART MAX, which expands epigraphically to Lucius Septimius Severus Augustus, Imperator Undecimum, Parthicus Maximus. The title Imperator XI references the emperor's eleventh imperial salutation, bestowed following the storming and sack of the Parthian royal capital of Ctesiphon late in AD 197. The cognomen ex virtute Parthicus Maximus records the formal honor voted by the Senate to commemorate this eastern victory. On the reverse, the legend reads MONETA AVGG, representing Moneta Augustorum. The doubled letter G at the conclusion of AVGG is of paramount constitutional significance: it denotes the grammatical plural of Augusti, acknowledging the joint principate formed when Caracalla was elevated to co-Augustus in AD 198, sharing supreme imperial authority with his father.

Typology and Chronology

Within the typology of Roman Imperial Coinage, type 135 is separated into sub-varieties based on the stance of Moneta: RIC IV 135A represents the standing personification, while RIC IV 135Ab represents the seated posture. The issue date falls into the interval from AD 197 to 200, bounded on the lower end by the acclamation Imperator XI following the Parthian victories and on the upper end by the appearance of subsequent consular and decennalian titulature. Parallel issues bearing the MONETA AVGG reverse were struck contemporaneously for Caracalla under the titles M AVR ANTON CAES PONTIF and M AVREL ANTONINVS AVG. This deliberate parallelism demonstrates that the seated Moneta reverse was part of a coordinated programmatic emission celebrating the collegiate concord of the two Augusti.

Circulation and Hoard Evidence

Denarii bearing the IMP XI PART MAX obverse formula circulated widely throughout the Roman provinces and along the military frontiers. Because the post-194 Severan denarius had an established silver fineness of roughly fifty percent, older second-century denarii of higher intrinsic purity were gradually extracted from day-to-day trade through hoarding or official reminting, leaving Severan issues as the standard medium of exchange. Hoard evidence from Roman Britain, the Rhine and Danube river limes, and Mediterranean urban contexts indicates that denarii of RIC 135Ab circulated actively for decades. These coins frequently appear in hoards buried during the military crises of the mid-third century alongside subsequent antoniniani, testifying to their durable utility in military payrolls and long-distance trade networks.

References

1. The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage: From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan Decius. pp. 499-528
2. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Volume V: Pertinax to Elagabalus. pp. 81-83
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC IV Septimius Severus 135Ab. ric.4.ss.135Ab
4. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume IV, Part I: Pertinax to Geta. p. 107, no. 135Ab