Things have been incredibly busy at work and at home lately. I still have a good number of coins to add to my database and to my website, but it will be several weeks before I can get to them. In the meantime, I've been thinking about the 'overachievers' of the ancient times. If you were conducting job interviews to run the kingdom and expand it a bit, who would you hire? The obvious answer for me is Alexander the Great, who conquered half the known world in ten years. Had he lived another ten, he probably would have grabbed the other half. This is one of his less common lifetime coins. Alexander III 'the Great' AR Diobol'Amphipolis', circa 336-323 BCE Young head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress / ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, two eagles standing facing one another on thunderbolt. Price 155; HGC 3.1, 906. 1.32g, 11mm, 3h. Ex Roma Beyond that, I ran a blank. The best of the Diadochi merely stayed alive. That goes for most of the others during that era. I do think Aurelian would have been a good applicant. I have one of his coins, but photographing it is still on my todo list... Let's see your overachievers!
A rather obvious candidate... But walking across hostile Gaul, constantly outnumbered, only to decide to build galleys and set sails over to hostile Britain once you reached Normandy, losing 1/3 of the fleet in bad weather and barely making it back to (still hostile) Gaul, spending the winter fighting for your life and building new galleys for next years trip to Britain, which was pointless in the first place so why stay when you got there, go back to (even more hostile) Gaul, walk back towards home while everybody in Gaul gather to kill you, kill or enslave all the Gauls, and finally get that sought after triumph, should probably get you on this list alone. But there was to be even more and never enough.
Diocletian did pretty well. The Empire was falling apart when he was proclaimed Emperor. He not only stabilised and reformed it but delegated all the work and retired to his vegetable garden. Diocletian Abdication Follis, 305-307 London. Bronze, 27mm, 10.5g. D N DIOCLETIANO FELICISSIMO SEN AVG. PROVIDENTIA DEORVM QVIES AVGG (RIC 77a).
That's a very nice diobol @kirispupis! I like your proposition. But in hiring the right candidate one obvious problem comes to mind: whoever is fit for the job is just about the last person you'd want to employ. If he's half as good as you hoped for, he'd have usurped you long before their trial period was over. If not, then they weren't the right man for the job anyway. Not much room for trial and error here. So,my advice: be very careful who you interview! My candidate is Seleukos I. I think he did a lot more than just 'survive' the diadochi.He started out with nothing in 323 and ended up with two-thirds of Alexander's empire in 281. Not a bad job for an intern! And probably a better administrator as well.
If Alexander's salary expectations are too big, I would consider Trajan as a good candidate. Yep, older, but experience can bring success in the company. Trajan AD 98-117. Rome Denarius AR 20 mm., 2,96 g. RIC II Trajan 130 Date Range: AD 103 - AD 111 IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P Bust of Trajan, laureate, right (sometimes draped on left shoulder) COS V P P S P Q R OPTIMO PRINC Victory, naked to hips, standing right, left foot set on a step, inscribing DACICA on shield
Alexander was just lucky and died before his 'luck' ran out. But Augustus is the guy I would go for! From a young age all the way to his 70s he was a cunning mastermind, who literally transformed the world's powerful state at that time to his wishes. He achieved what his uncle Julius Caesar couldn't, won Mark Antony and ended the Ptolemaic dynasty, reformed the entire system that saved the 'Republic' to last for centuries to come.
I'd say Gallienus was an overachiever. After Valerian I died, he did his best to hold the empire together, but it was too much for one man with all the chaos going on at the time. Gallienus (253 - 268 A.D.) Egypt, Alexandria Billon Tetradrachm O: AVT K Π ΛIK ΓAΛΛIHNOC CЄB, laureate and cuirassed bust right R: Homonoia seated left, right hand raised, left holding double cornucopia; IB/L to left, palm frond to right.Dated RY 12 (AD 264/265). 10.67g 22mm Köln 2923; Dattari (Savio) 5249; K&G 90.80; Emmett 3817.12. Published on Wildwinds.
I think Alexander the Great was the epitome of over-achievement in ancient history. Considering what he achieved in a short period of time & his age, he has no equal. Another figure who can't be overlooked in Roman history is Septimius Severus. As Anthony Birley describes in his book SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS THE AFRICAN EMPEROR, "Septimius Severus, born & raised in Tripolitania in North Africa, AD 193-211. He was the new Hannibal on the throne of the Caesars, the destroyer of the existing social order". Early in life he became a Roman senator, then married a Syrian woman, Julia Domna, from Arab Emesa. He avenged the death of Pertinax, fought a long & grueling civil war, & became emperor of Rome. He greatly expanded the Roman frontiers, & like Diocletian, died a natural death.
Overachieving in the area of fecundity was Faustina II. With twelve children in eleven pregnancies, she out-did any other empress before or since when it comes to having children.