Menu

Coin of the Month

December 2024: Ruler over Heaven, Earth, and Sea

The Coin of this Month is presented by Andrea Gorys und Bernhard Weisser


Changes in rulership have been associated with uncertainties for populations to this day. The notables of Pergamon had been observing the sixteen-year-old Commodus since 177, after his father Marcus Aurelius elevated him as co-emperor and presumptive successor. When he succeeded his deceased father in 180, people believed they understood how to flatter the new sole ruler of the Roman Empire. A large bronze coin from Pergamon, minted at the beginning of Emperor Commodus's sole rule, hints at the hubris that characterized some heads of state both then and now.

A praise poem from Pergamon (IvP II 324), dated to the year 170 AD, pays homage to Zeus as the "supreme of all gods and ruler over heaven, earth, and sea". A corresponding pictorial characterization of Zeus appears on the reverse of this large bronze coin from Pergamon. He stands naked, with a sceptre in his left arm and a bundle of lightning in his extended right hand. He is framed by four personifications all turning towards him: on his right and left, Thalassa (Sea) reclines with a steering wheel in her right hand and crab claws on her head, and Gaia (Earth), holding a cornucopia in her left arm. Between them stands an eagle, Zeus's animal, with spread wings. Above hover the busts of Selene with a crescent moon and Helios with a radiate crown.


Notably, Zeus is depicted contrary to traditional iconography with only a short beard and hair, essentially as a youthful god. Our explanation for the divergent Zeus representation is that the minting authority wanted to align this Zeus with the image of the young emperor. The emission by the strategos Marcus Aelius Glykonianus, to which our Coin of the Month belongs, is distinguished by particularly rich imagery. This also includes a type with the representation of a bull sacrifice in front of an elevated imperial statue with a correspondingly youthful countenance of Commodus (CN Type 5854).


Further depictions of the youthful "Zeus" can be found in Pergamon under subsequent emperors Geta (CN Type 4992) and Caracalla (CN Type 4976). However, in these coinages, the significantly smaller depicted "Zeus", ecognizable by his attributes of sceptre and lightning bundle, is carried by Thalassa and Gaia, and thus subject to a different hierarchy of significance.


In our coin from the time of Commodus, the figure of Zeus/Commodus is unequivocally the central motif, to which the four personifications turn in acknowledgment. Commodus himself was a controversial ruler in his time, who, as Cassius Dio (himself elevated to senatorial rank by Commodus) writes, did not want to listen to the advice of his senators (Roman History 72,1). If the emperor wanted to be represented here as the supreme god and thus as the universal ruler of the cosmos, this coinage reflects the presumptuous view of the office of head of state with which the inhabitants of Pergamon sought to flatter the young ruler.



View Coin



All Coins/Types of the month: