Commodus (AD 177-192). AR denarius (16mm, 3.59 gm, 12h). NGC VF 4/5 - 3/5. Rome, AD 191-192. L AEL AVREL COMM AVG P FEL, head of Commodus right, wearing lion's skin headdress / HER-CVL / RO-MAN / AV-GV, Hercules' club dividing legend in three lines; all within wreath terminating in large jewel. RIC III 251. Commodus' megalomania entered its terminal phase in AD 192. Divested of his powerful chamberlain Cleander, he gave full vent to his obsession with Hercules and pretensions to godhead. This coin of 192 depicts Commodus in the guide of Hercules, wearing the skin of the Nemean lion; the reverse legend translates as "To the Roman Hercules." A famous marble portrait busts depicts him in the same guise, and he portrayed the demigod during a series of spectacles in the Colosseum, where he dispatched hundreds of animals in imitation of Hercules' Twelve Labors. He demanded that the senate rename the city of Rome as Colonia Commodiana, and ordered that all the months of the year be renamed in his honor as well. While the populace seems to have enjoyed these antics, the Roman aristocracy was horrified and a conspiracy took root over the course of the year that culminated in the emperor's assassination on New Year's Eve, AD 192.

HID09801242017

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