- Stock: Sold
- Model: FIDES EXERC denarius
Commodus (180-192 AD). AR Denarius (17 mm, 2,64 g), Roma (Rome), 184-185 AD.
Obv. M COMM ANT AVG P BRIT, laureate head right.
Rev. P M TR P XI IMP VII COS V P P, Commodus standing left on platform, holding sceptre, right hand raised, addressing three soldiers standing right; below, FID EXERC.
RIC III, 130 d
Rare and interesting type. Almost very fine.
Soon after beginning the celebration for his decennalia, or tenth year of power, the Emperor Commodus was confronted by a detachment of soldiers from Britannia who had been detailed to Italy to fight brigands. The legionaries denounced the praetorian prefect Sextus Tigidius Perennis, claiming he was planning to unseat Commodus and raise his own son to the purple. The British troops had a personal grudge against Perennis due to his harsh crackdown on a mutiny they had staged the previous year. According to the historian Herodian, the soldiers showed Commodus coins that Perennis had struck with his own portrait; no such coins have ever been found, and it is likely the prefect had been framed by his court rival, the chamberlain Cleander. In any case, Commodus cashiered Perennis and allowed the soldiers to execute him and his immediate family. The emperor rewarded the soldiers and bought their loyalty, for a time anyway, with a substantial cash bounty, probably paid out in this denarius type depicting Commodus addressing the cohorts.
