The Importance of the Grain Supply

215, Lot: 467. Estimate $1000. Sold for $1270. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Commodus. AD 177-192. Æ Sestertius (32mm, 25.08 g, 1h). Rome mint. Struck AD 182. Laureate head right / Annona standing left, holding statue of Concordia and cornucopia; modius to left with four grain ears, prow to right with two figures on deck and Nike on side. RIC III 326a; MIR 18, 522-6/30. VF, attractive dark green patina, strike slightly uneven.

Annona was traditionally a goddess of the harvest, worshipped in Rome. By the reign of Commodus, she had become the personification of the Imperial grain supply. With arable land in Italy increasingly focusing on viniculture in the first century AD, the city of Rome necessarily had to import all of its food from elsewhere in the Mediterranean. This grain, sold to the poorer citizens of Rome at a low, fixed price was regularly shipped in on imperially sponsored grain ships from Egypt and North Africa. Any threat to this precious supply line endangered the well-being of the Roman populace and, by extent, the political control of the Emperor.

This reverse type shows Annona with all the trappings of the grain supply: the modius of grain granted to each citizen, the supply ship to bring it in, and a statue of Concordia, representing the urban peace the grain helps preserve. It was common for emperors to put similar reverse types with Annona on their coins early in their reigns, in an attempt to propagate the idea that peace and abundance will be achieved under their rule. Seven years after this coin was struck, Commodus lost this delicate control. In AD 189, the freedman Cleander plunged the city of Rome into famine through extensive specialization and monopolization of the grain supply. In response, the people of Rome rioted and rose in rebellion. To end the uprising and save his throne, Commodus threw Cleander to the mob. Following these events, the emperor betrayed his economic incompetence by further lowering prices, causing the much-needed grain supply to be bought up instantly and perpetuating the famine.