Beschreibung
Erhaltung: Attractive dark tone and excellent portrait with s details. | Abkürzungen
Katalognummer: millennial age
weight 15,74gr. | bronze 29,5mm.
obv. Laureate bust right, wearing cuirass and paludamentum,
surrounded by the legend IMP M IVL PHILIPPVS AVG
rev. Cippus (column) inscribed COS / III in two lines, surrounded
by the legend MILIARVM SAECVLVM, SC across field
Differing from the usual reverse legend for this series, the millennial age is conveyed through the use of Miliarum Saeculum, commemorating Romes newly completed millennium and commencement upon another.
The founding date of the city of Rome (ab urbe condita) was not always agreed upon, but by the time of Philippus the Arabian, it was commonly held to be 21 April 753 BC. Philippus the Arabian celebrated the thousandth anniversary of Rome on 21 April 248 | massive festivities, including three days and three nights of the Secular Games (Ludi Saeculares / Ludi Terentini) were held. In the Colossaeum more than 1,000 gladiators were killed along with hundreds of exotic animals including hippos, leopards, lions, giraffes, and one rhinoceros. Philips also had launched a huge propaganda effort to make people believe in the coming of a new age. Evidence of this are the coins struck for the anniversary, which bear the inscriptions saeculum novum and miliarum saeculum. Nevertheless, the feeling of the end was very strong, intensified in the case of the Christians by their expectation of the end of the world.
Cohen 95 | RIC 157a | Sear 9000
Attractive dark tone and excellent portrait with fine details.
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