Today is the anniversary of the battle of Lyons, fought in 197 AD between the forces of Septimius Severus and his erstwhile and precarious ally Clodius Albinus. Septimius had already defeated Didius Julianus in Rome and Pescennius Niger in the East; at Lyons, Septimius was victorious gained definitive mastery of the Roman world.
The battle may very well have been the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought by Roman forces - that's saying a lot since Roman armies frequently fought each other. Dio claims 300,000 soldiers fought - 150,000 on each side - and while that's surely an exaggeration, it's possible that the total Roman forces reached 100,000 troops.
Septimius celebrated his victory over Albinus with - what else - games, and commemorated the event with the above denarius type. The obverse features a laureate portrait of Septimus facing right with the legend L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VIIII. The reverse features an elephant walking right with the legend MVNIFICENTIA AVG. It is from the Rome mint and is 18mm in diameter and weighs 2.92 g. The reference is RIC 100.
Technorati Tags: Septimius Severus, Clodius Albinus, Lyons, denarius, numismatics
0 comments:
Post a Comment