Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 916. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $5000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 193-211 AD. AV Aureus (6.75 gm). Struck 194 AD. L SEPT SEV PE-RT AVG IMP II, laureate head right / DIS AVSPI-CIB T-R P II, COS II P P in exergue, Hercules standing left, holding club and lion skin; and Liber, wreathed, standing left, emptying cup for panther standing left before, and holding thyrsus. RIC IV 25 corr.; BMCRE 58; Cohen 113. Good VF. (See color enlargement on plate 13.) ($5000)

From the Marc Melcher Collection.

The Dis Auspicibus are the divine augurs who inaugurate a new era, hopefully of peace. Severus had deposed Didius Julianus the previous year, and in 194 defeated Pescinnius Niger. There would be a brief lull before he turned his militant attention to his nominal associate, Clodius Albinus. Meanwhile, the victorious Hercules and Liber (Dionysus) proclaim the end of conflict. The two semi-divine beings, before ascending to Olympus, had assisted the Olympian gods in the Gigantomachy, and both divinities in their later cults incorporated elements of victory celebrations, with wine and festivals for their followers. Hercules was kallinikos, or Conquerer, upon whose altar in Rome, the Ara Maxima, retiring soldiers and gladiators offered their no longer needed arms. Dionysus, meanwhile, with his army of Bacchantes had overawed the entire known world, to the borders of India. Severus is employing divine heralds to announce his ultimate ascension to supreme power.