End of a Reign: Aurelius’ Last Medallion

Sale: CNG 76, Lot: 1498. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 12 September 2007.  Sold For $7500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Marcus Aurelius. AD 161-180. Æ Medallion (55.67 g, 11h). Rome mint. Struck AD 179-180. M AVREL ANTONINVS AVG GERM SARM TR P XXXIIII, laureate and cuirassed bust right / VIRTVS AVG IMP X COS III P P, Virtus seated right, holding parazonium and spear. Gnecchi 59; Tonybee pl. 26, 7; cf. MIR 18, 468-6 (Sestertii); Banti 503. VF, dark green patina with earthen deposits, surfaces a bit rough. Rare.

Marcus Aurelius began his final tribunician year, his thirty-fourth, on 10 December AD 179. At the time, he and his son, and co-emperor, Commodus, were on the Danube frontier, completing a campaign against the Marcomanni and Quadi. In AD 169, these two Germanic tribes had crossed the Danube and penetrated the empire as far as Aquileia, which they besieged. An initial response led by Aurelius and Lucius Verus was cut short by the latter's death that same year, but Marcus quickly organized a new campaign to push the tribes out of Roman territory, back across the Danube. This campaign was successful, and thankfully so, as Marcus had to turn his attention to the east, where the governor of Syria, Avidius Cassius, revolted in AD 175. This event, too, was quickly quashed, returned to Rome via Athens, where he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. Nevertheless, the Danube campaign had been left undone, and soon events there required the emperor to once again return to the frontier. As before, Aurelius' capable military leadership proved dominant; the threat was mostly overcome by late in AD 179, and the emperor was acclaimed imperator for the tenth time by his troops. By now, though, the years of constant warfare, which had lasted from the earliest years of his long reign, took their toll, and Aurelius died the following spring. This medallion is the rarer of only two types issued during the three months of Aurelius' 34th tribunician year.