First side of the image: IMP TRAIANO OPTIMO AVG GER DAC P M TR P, Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Trajan to right.
Second side of the image: PROFECTIO AUGUSTI, Traianus, in military dress and hold spear, on horse walking to right; before him, soldier walking right, head turned back to left; behind, three soldiers walking right.
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Second side of the image: Profectio di Marcus Aurelius on horseback right, holding spear, preceded by soldier holding spear and shield; three soldiers follow emperor.
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First side of the image: L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VIII, Laureate head of Septimius Severus to right (Paludamentum)
Second side of the image: PROFECTIO AUG, Septimius Severus riding horse starts for limes Orientis, holding transverse spear.
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Second side of the image: PROFECTIO AVGVSTI, Alexander Severus on horse, holding transverse spear, preceded by Victoria, with a crown and palm.
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The profectio ("setting forth") was the ceremonial departure of a consul in his guise as a general in Republican Rome,5 and of an emperor during the Imperial era.6 It was a conventional scene for relief sculpture and imperial coinage.7 The return was the reditus8 and the ceremonial reentry the adventus.9
References
References
- Roman Imperial Coinage, Traianus, II, 297; BMC 512 var. Calicó 986a. Cohen 40 var. Hill 690.
- Roman Imperial Coinage, Marcus Aurelius, III 977; MIR 18, 191-6/30; Cohen 502.
- Roman Imperial Coinage, Septimius Severus, IVa, 494; BMC 466. Cohen 580.
- Roman Imperial Coinage, Alexander Severus, IVb, 596; Cohen, 492.
- Andrew Feldherr, Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (University of California Press, 1998), pp. 9–10.
- Erika Manders, Coining Images of Power: Patterns in the Representation of Roman Emperors on Imperial Coinage, A.D. 193–282 (Brill, 2012), p. 71.
- Manders, Coining Images of Power, p. 70–76.
- Geoffrey S. Sumi, Ceremony and Power: Performing Politics in Rome Between Republic and Empire (University of Michigan Press, 2005), p. 35.
- Manders, Coining Images of Power, p. 70.