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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Marsyas Mike, post: 4990286, member: 85693&quot;]Yesterday, Election Day, I got this &quot;political&quot; coin in the mail - Commodus posing as, ironically enough, &quot;Father of the Senate&quot; (<i>PATER SENATVS</i>) on the reverse.</p><p><br /></p><p>Oh boy, I&#039;ll bet Dio Cassius and the rest of the Senate hated this coin - is that a laurel branch or a severed ostrich head he is holding up?</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;This fear was shared by all, by us senators as well as by the rest. And here is another thing that he did to us senators which gave us every reason to look for our death. Having killed an ostrich and cut off his head, he came up to where we were sitting, holding the head in his left hand and in his right hand raising aloft his bloody sword; and though he spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way. And many would indeed have perished by the sword on the spot, for laughing at him (for it was laughter rather than indignation that overcame us), if I had not chewed some laurel leaves, which I got from my garland, myself, and persuaded the others who were sitting near me to do the same, so that in the steady movement of our armies (sic - I think this is supposed to be &quot;jaws&quot;) we might conceal the fact that we were laughing.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Dio Cassius Roman History, Book LXXIII</p><p><a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html" rel="nofollow">https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1198721[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Commodus&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Æ Sestertius </b></p><p><b>(186-187 A.D.)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </b></p><p><b>Rome Mint </b></p><p>[M C]OMMODV[S ANT P FELIX AVG BR]IT, laureate head right / [PATER SENATVS PM TR P XII IMP VIII COS V PP] S-C Commodus standing left holding scepter &amp; laurel-branch.</p><p>RIC III 502.</p><p>(23.43 grams / 28 mm)</p><p><br /></p><p>Mine&#039;s in pretty poor shape, but as far as I can tell, this sucker is rare.&nbsp; I found only two examples on acsearch, both very (suspiciously?) high grade:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=114229" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=114229" rel="nofollow">https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=114229</a></p><p><a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6049278" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6049278" rel="nofollow">https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6049278</a></p><p><br /></p><p>OCRE only has one, and it is this one, in the British Museum - which is a lot nicer than mine: <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-15013" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-15013" rel="nofollow">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-15013</a></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1198722[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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