Exceptional Pertinax Denarius – Lempereur Plate Coin
Pertinax. AD 193. AR Denarius (17.5mm, 3.47 g, 6h). Rome mint. 2nd emission. IMP CAES P HELV PERTIN AVG, laureate head right / PROVID DEOR COS II, Providentia, draped, standing front, head left, raising right hand toward star, left hand on breast. RIC IV 11a; Lempereur Type 10, 561a (D205/R291 –
this coin, illustrated); RSC 43; BMCRE 13. Lightly toned. EF. Exceptional portrait.
Ex MACM inventory MMoCA181C; A. Lynn Collection (Manhattan Sale I, 5 January 2010), lot 331; Jürgen K. Schmidt Collection (Triton V, 15 January 2002), lot 2007; Numismatica Ars Classica 9 (16 April 1996), lot 892; Numismatic Fine Arts XXIX (13 August 1992), lot 385; Tkalec (26 March 1991), lot 315.
As the Senate’s choice to replace the dissolute Commodus, the elderly Pertinax immediately launched into a program of reform intended to restore faith in the Roman Empire’s government and finances. Among these was a reform of the silver coinage, which had been seriously debased under Commodus. The silver denarii issued by Pertinax show a marked increase in both weight and fineness over the last issues of Commodus. The portraiture was likewise of a high standard, showing the emperor as a distinguished and heavily bearded senior statesman. However it was not to last: Pertinax was slain by the Praetorians after a reign of less than three months, and the debasement of Rome’s coinage soon resumed and accelerated.
