The Secular Games under Septimius Severus, AD 204

CNG 84, Lot: 1072. Estimate $150. Sold for $260. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Septimius Severus. AD 193-211. AR Denarius (19mm, 2.88 g, 6h). Secular Games issue. Rome mint. Struck AD 204. Laureate head right / COS III LVDOS SAECVL FEC, Liber (Bacchus), wearing leopard's skin, standing right, panther at feet, holding cantharus and thyrsus, vis-à-vis Hercules standing left, holding club and lion's skin. RIC IV 257; RSC 109. VF.

From the John Bitner Collection.

Similar to the Dis Auspices issues of the same year, Liber and Hercules are portrayed as the divine augurs who inaugurate a new era of peace. The coinciding of Severus’s still recent victory over Didius Julianus and Pescennius Niger in 193 and 194, respectively, and the Ludi Saeculares (in accordance with those last held by Augustus and Domitian) presented Severus with the chance to celebrate not only his ascension to supreme power, but also the storied past of Rome.