Maximian, A.D. 293-295

Maximian—Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus Herculeus—formed the Dyarchy with Diocletian from 286 to 292. He served under Aurelian and Probus earlier in his career, and continued his military campaigns as a soldier-emperor against the Bagaudae, Persians, and Germans during his reign as Augustus. When Diocletian adopted Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus in 292, Maximian in turn adopted Constantius Chlorus to rule at his side in the West, thus forming a political system of tetrarchic rule. As one of the two emperors named Maximianus during the Tetrarchy, Maximian was distinguished from Galerius Maximianus sometimes with the inscription of SENIOR, but also with the title Augustus, a title bestowed to him by Diocletian in 286; Galerius Maximianus had only been known with the title of Caesar at this time, and did not receive the title of Augustus until after the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in 305.1

The University of Virginia Art Museum has in its possession an aureus issued by Maximian. Its obverse reads MAXIMIANVS AVGVSTVS and depicts the head of Maximian facing right, wearing a laureate. The reverse, whose legend is CONSVL IIII P(ATER) P(ATRIAE) PROCO(N)S(VL), displays an image of the togate emperor standing facing left and holding a globe (a symbol of power) in his right hand. The legend dates to the fourth consulship (between 293-295) of the emperor. The exergue contains the mint mark SMA, referring to the Sacra Moneta Antiocheia.2

Aurei from Antioch in this period were struck with the Greek numeral for 60, signifying that there were 60 coins struck to the pound, at an average weight of 5.5 grams (84 grains), which had been the standard set by Diocletian in 286 when he reintroduced gold coins of very pure quality, perhaps as a stable basis of a future, post-inflationary currency. Diocletian’s monetary reforms had been a continuation of Aurelian’s efforts to restore confidence in the state’s currency by implementing regular weight and finer design after decades of debased coinage that the state itself had become reluctant to accept in taxes. Additionally, he began issuing the pure silver argenteus in 294 at a ratio of 96 coins to the pound and 20 argentei to the aureus. The reinstitution of precious metals into the currency system ultimately failed due to the scarcity of the metals, although inflation did eventually level off.3 The year 294 coincided not only with economic reform instituted by the Tetrarchy, but also—perhaps more notably—with a new and uniform iconography designed to reflect a political stability that was to be associated with a newfound economic stability following decades of volatility.

The new portrait style seen on coins has been referred to as “cubistic,” i. e., bold, angular, and in high relief. The emperors are generally shown as hardy rulers with short hair, bearded, square jaws, and eyes that stare straight ahead. The neck is unnaturally thick, the lips tight, and the brow furrowed. Many of the extant busts are also in the strongly angular style that dominated the coinage.4 Group identity is the essence of tetrarchic portraiture; the tetrarchs rarely saw each other, so concordia is expressed with homogeneity. The most famous depiction of tetrarchic symbolism is that of the porphyry group from Constantinople, now residing at San Marco, Venice (fig. 1). This sculpture shows the four rulers in military dress, with identical posture—left hands grasping swords, right arms grasping their neighbor, and feet equally spaced.5

Figure 1: Porphyry image of tetrarchs

In a vast empire governed by four rulers, each issuing his own coinage, it became necessary to establish a single image to represent them all as legitimate rulers. Accordingly, it is often impossible to differentiate between portraits of Maximian and Diocletian (fig. 2). Although few portraits from the eastern or western provinces are great works of art, they represent the basis on which fourth-century imperial style was founded. This style persisted until the reign of Theodosius, when significant alterations were made to imperial portraiture.6 Stevenson suggests that silver minted by Maximian are rare, and aurei such as this one are rarer still.7

Figure 2: Aureus of Diocletian, post-reform.

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Notes

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Bibliography

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The gold coin of Maximian, an aureus of A.D. 293-295, is not significantly later than the bronze of Maximinus, but it marks a watershed in Roman history and imperial portraiture. Maximian was co-emperor with Diocletian. Diocletian himself was a soldier emperor who came to power by violent means, but he transformed the office by instituting the tetrarchy, a system in which four rulers controlled the vast empire now divided into an eastern and a western half. Each half was controlled by a senior Augustus and a junior Caesar. Maximian was chosen by Diocletian to be the Augustus in the west. When the Augusti retired (a new concept for a Roman emperor!), the two Caesars would advance to Augusti and appoint two new Caesars. Diocletian and Maximian retired in A.D. 305, but the system did not endure for long. The ensuing struggle eventually led to the sole rule of Constantine the Great.

Tetrarchic portraiture, as seen in this coin of Maximian, rejects the individualized features and psychological dimensions of the earlier soldier emperors and institutes instead a more abstract image. Individuality is stripped away and Diocletian and his three colleagues (in their own portraits) all look alike. If not for the obverse legend that firmly proclaims that Maximian is Augustus, MAXIMIANVS AVGVSTVS, one could easily mistake this portrait for that of Diocletian, and that is precisely the political message that the artistic style proclaims. The similarities between the two emperors and the two juniors supported the principle that harmony and uniformity, not individuality, reigned supreme. Although Maximian sports the short military haircut and short beard, the sharp edges of the hair as it meets the face, the rounded jaw line, the unnaturally large and expressive eye, and the stiff features overall introduce a new geometric and abstract quality that marks a new trend in imperial portraiture.

The emperor’s additional titles, CONSVL IIII PP PROCOS (on the reverse of the coin), surround an image of Maximian standing and facing left, holding a globe as a symbol of power. The indication that the emperor is consul for the fourth time allows the coin to be dated closely. Below his feet is the mintmark, SMA[symbol]. “SM” is sacra moneta, or sacred currency. “A” identifies the mint as Antiocheia, (Antioch), and the mark of value indicates that there were sixty coins to the pound of gold.

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Bibliography and Abbreviations

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The University of Virginia’s numismatic collection contains, at this writing (2008), ten splendid gold coins ranging in date from the Hellenistic dekadrachm of the Sicilian tyrant Hiketas (287-278 B.C.E.) to the two late Roman solidi of Valentinian I (C.E. 364-375) and Valentinian II (C.E. 388), dating to the period after Constantine had moved the capitol from Rome to his “new Rome” at Constantinople. Between those extremes are the remaining seven Roman imperial aurei that span the arc of empire from the Julio-Claudians (aurei of Claudius and Nero), through the Flavians (aureus of Domitian), to the second-century emperors (aurei of Trajan, Hadrian, Lucius Verus), and finally to the Tetrarchy (aureus of Maximian).

The Roman coins from Claudius to Valentinian II cover a period of well over 300 years and evoke the aspirations of several dynasties and document various approaches to the organization of the empire. As works of sculpture they present fine portraits of many of the key players in the extended drama of the Roman empire. Using these nine coins as touchstones, one could narrate the whole history of the Roman empire from its beginnings to the point at which it evolved into Byzantine empire.

In this collection of Roman coins the dekadrachm of Hiketas is an outlier. It was purchased because it had a good provenance, was available, affordable, and above all, beautiful. As a Hellenistic coin it anchors the collection of gold coins in the Greek period and documents the influential Greek presence in Italy (Roman coinage owed a great deal to the coinage of the Greek cities in Italy). Although Hellenistic in date, the head of Persephone on the obverse is Classical in style. It is a fine example of Greek sculpture and forms an important point of reference for other coins in the collection.

As works of portraiture the nine Roman coins present many of the changing sculptural styles that appeared between the inception of the empire under Augustus and the late empire of the time of Valentinian I and Valentinian II. While aurei of the first three emperors are not present in the collection, Trajan’s “restored” aureus of Tiberius (Rome’s second emperor from C.E. 14 to 37) presents the idealized portrait style of the early empire. By the time that the aurei of Claudius and Nero were struck the pendulum had swung in the direction of more accurate renditions of the emperor’s appearance. Domitian belonged to the next, i.e., the Flavian, dynasty begun by Vespasian. Our aureus was struck late in his reign (he was assassinated in C.E. 96), but it masks any signs of aging and emphatically denies that the emperor was balding. Changing hairstyles are always part of the imperial portrait, and the aureus of Hadrian presents the new fashion for longer hair and a beard. The beard continued to be worn by the emperor until Constantine, in the early fourth century, broke with tradition, shaved his beard, and created a portrait that served as a precedent for the portraits of Valentinian I and Valentinian II.

Hadrian not only grew a beard, but also wore his curly hair longer than the emperors who immediately preceded him. That style set a trend, and the aureus of Lucius Verus depicts one of Hadrian’s successors with a very full head of curly hair and an ample beard. The “soldier emperors” of the third century wore close-cropped, military-style hair and beards and presented vivid countenances that displayed psychological depths rarely found in imperial portraiture. No gold coins of the soldier emperors are in our collection, but the sestertius of Maximinus Thrax ( C.E. 235-238) illustrates the style.

In the late third century Diocletian and his co-emperor, Maximian, brought to an end the chaotic period of the soldier emperors. Each emperor took a junior colleague who was to succeed him, the result being that the empire was controlled by a tetrarchy, or a rule by four individuals. The new tetrarchic form of government required a new portrait style that emphasized the harmony and cooperation among the tetrarchs. Consequently, most of the individual characteristics that are seen in the earlier portraits are erased from the portrait of Maximian who appears strong and powerful, but devoid of individual features that distinguish the emperors on the other coins (View Essay). Within our collection we cannot compare Maximian to his co-emperor, Diocletian, but such a comparison would show that the two appear to be nearly identical to support the idea of the harmony that existed between them. The portraits of Valentinian I and Valentinian II stand at the threshold of the Byzantine world. They look backward to the portraits of Constantine and forward to the icons, mosaics, and frescoes of the Byzantine period of the sixth century and later.

The essays on the gold coins are the product of a graduate seminar on Roman Numismatics that I offered in the fall of 2007. Each of the nine seminar members wrote an essay on one of the ten gold coins. Seminar members were Jared Benton, Katherine Boller, Robert Coleman, Nicholas Genau, Renee Gondek, Ethan Gruber, Stephanie Layton, Ismini Miliaresis, and Carrie Sulosky. In addition, seminar member Ethan Gruber designed the present website with the help of a grant from the University of Virginia Library.

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