Septimius Severus - Roman Emperor: 193-211 A.D. -
Bronze 17mm (3.69 grams) of Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia Inferior
AV KAI CЄ CЄVHPOC, laureate head right.
NIKOΠOΛIT ΠPOC ICTPO, Nude Hercules standing right, holding apple from his 11th Labor of stealing some golden apples of immortality from the Hesperides and club.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.  

The Eleventh Labour of Heracles

After Heracles completed his first ten Labours , Eurystheus gave him two more claiming that neither the Hydra counted (because Iolaus helped Heracles) nor the Augean stables (either because he received payment for the job or because the rivers did the work). The first of these two additional Labours was to steal the apples from the garden of the Hesperides. Heracles first caught the Old Man of the Sea , the shape-shifting sea god, to learn where the Garden of the Hesperides was located.

In some variations, Heracles, either at the start or at the end of his task, meets Antaeus , who was invincible as long as he touched his mother, Gaia , the earth. Heracles killed Antaeus by holding him aloft and crushing him in a bearhug.

Herodotus claims that Heracles stopped in Egypt , where King Busiris decided to make him the yearly sacrifice, but Heracles burst out of his chains.

Hercules stealing the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. Detail of a Twelve Labours Roman mosaic from Llíria , Spain (3rd century).

Finally making his way to the Garden of the Hesperides, Heracles tricked Atlas into retrieving some of the golden apples for him, by offering to hold up the heavens for a little while (Atlas was able to take them as, in this version, he was the father or otherwise related to the Hesperides). This would have made this task - like the Hydra and Augean stables - void because he had received help. Upon his return, Atlas decided that he did not want to take the heavens back, and instead offered to deliver the apples himself, but Heracles tricked him again by agreeing to take his place on condition that Atlas relieve him temporarily so that Heracles could make his cloak more comfortable. Atlas agreed, but Heracles reneged and walked away, carrying the apples. According to an alternative version, Heracles slew Ladon instead.

There is another variation to the story where Heracles was the only person to steal the apples, other than Perseus , although Athena later returned the apples to their rightful place in the garden. They are considered by some to be the same "apples of joy" that tempted Atalanta , as opposed to the "apple of discord" used by Eris to start a beauty contest on Olympus (which caused "The Siege of Troy").

On Attic pottery, especially from the late fifth century, Heracles is depicted sitting in bliss in the Gardens of the Hesperides, attended by the maidens.

In Greek mythology , the Hesperides (Greek: Ἑσπερίδες) are nymphs who tend a blissful garden in a far western corner of the world, located near the Atlas mountains in North Africa at the edge of the encircling Oceanus, the world-ocean .

According to the Sicilian Greek poet Stesichorus , in his poem the "Song of Geryon ", and the Greek geographer Strabo , in his book Geographika (volume III), the Hesperides are in Tartessos , a location placed in the south of the Iberian peninsula .

By Ancient Roman times^[when?], the garden of the Hesperides had lost its archaic place in religion and had dwindled to a poetic convention, in which form it was revived in Renaissance poetry, to refer both to the garden and to the nymphs that dwelt there.

 Etymology

The name means originating from Hesperus , the evening star Venus , equivalent to vesper.

 The Nymphs of the Evening

Ordinarily the Hesperides number three, like the other Greek triads (the Three Graces and the Moirai ). "Since the Hesperides themselves are mere symbols of the gifts the apples embody, they cannot be actors in a human drama. Their abstract, interchangeable names are a symptom of their impersonality," Evelyn Harrison has observed. Nevertheless, among the names given to them, though never all at once, are Aegle ("dazzling light"), Arethusa, Erytheia (or Erytheis) and Hesperia (alternatively Hespereia, Hespere, Hespera, Hesperusa or Hesperethoosa). Lipara, Asterope and Chrysothemis are named in a Hesperide scene of the apotheosis of Heracles (romanised to Hercules ) on a late fifth-century hydria by the Meidias Painter in London They are sometimes called the Western Maidens, the Daughters of Evening or Erythrai, and the "Sunset Goddesses", designations all apparently tied to their imagined location in the distant west. Hesperis is appropriately the personification of the evening (as Eos is of the dawn) and the Evening Star is Hesperus. In addition to their tending of the garden, they were said to have taken great pleasure in singing.

They are sometimes portrayed as the evening daughters of Night (Nyx) either alone, or with Darkness (Erebus), in accord with the way Eos in the farthermost east, in Colchis , is the daughter of the titan Hyperion . Or they are listed as the daughters of Atlas , or of Zeus, and either Hesperius or Themis , or Phorcys and Ceto.

Erytheia ("the red one") is one of the Hesperides. The name was applied to an island close to the coast of southern Hispania , which was the site of the original Punic colony of Gades (modern Cadiz). Pliny's Natural History (4.36) records of the island of Gades: "On the side which looks towards Spain, at about 100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, on which the original city of Gades stood. By Ephorus and Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timæus and Silenus Aphrodisias, and by the natives the Isle of Juno." The island was the seat of Geryon , who was overcome by Heracles .

 The Garden of the Hesperides

The Garden of the Hesperides is Hera's orchard in the west, where either a single tree or a grove of immortality-giving golden apples grew. The apples were planted from the fruited branches that Gaia gave to her as a wedding gift when Hera accepted Zeus . The Hesperides were given the task of tending to the grove, but occasionally plucked from it themselves. Not trusting them, Hera also placed in the garden a never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon named Ladon as an additional safeguard. However, in the mythology surrounding the Judgement of Paris , the Goddess of Discord Eris managed to enter the garden, pluck a golden apple , inscribe it "To the most beautiful" (Ancient Greek: Kallistei) and roll it into the wedding party (which she had not been invited to), in effect causing the Trojan Wars .

LLLucius Septimius Severus (or rarely Severus I) (April 11, 145/146-February 4, 211) was a Roman general, and Roman Emperor from April 14, 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Berber part of Rome's historic Africa Province .

Septimius Severus was born and raised at Leptis Magna (modern Berber , southeast of Carthage , modern Tunisia ). Severus came from a wealthy, distinguished family of equestrian rank. Severus was of Italian Roman ancestry on his mother's side and of Punic or Libyan -Punic ancestry on his father's. Little is known of his father, Publius Septimius Geta , who held no major political status but had two cousins who served as consuls under emperor Antoninus Pius . His mother, Fulvia Pia's family moved from Italy to North Africa and was of the Fulvius gens, an ancient and politically influential clan, which was originally of plebeian status. His siblings were a younger Publius Septimius Geta and Septimia Octavilla. Severus’s maternal cousin was Praetorian Guard and consul Gaius Fulvius Plautianus .

In 172, Severus was made a Senator by the then emperor Marcus Aurelius . In 187 he married secondly Julia Domna . In 190 Severus became consul , and in the following year received from the emperor Commodus (successor to Marcus Aurelius) the command of the legions in Pannonia .

On the murder of Pertinax by the troops in 193, they proclaimed Severus Emperor at Carnuntum , whereupon he hurried to Italy. The former emperor, Didius Julianus , was condemned to death by the Senate and killed, and Severus took possession of Rome without opposition.

The legions of Syria , however, had proclaimed Pescennius Niger emperor. At the same time, Severus felt it was reasonable to offer Clodius Albinus , the powerful governor of Britannia who had probably supported Didius against him, the rank of Caesar, which implied some claim to succession. With his rearguard safe, he moved to the East and crushed Niger's forces at the Battle of Issus . The following year was devoted to suppressing Mesopotamia and other Parthian vassals who had backed Niger. When afterwards Severus declared openly his son Caracalla as successor, Albinus was hailed emperor by his troops and moved to Gallia. Severus, after a short stay in Rome, moved northwards to meet him. On February 19 , 197 , in the Battle of Lugdunum , with an army of 100,000 men, mostly composed of Illyrian , Moesian and Dacian legions, Severus defeated and killed Clodius Albinus, securing his full control over the Empire.

Emperor

Severus was at heart a soldier , and sought glory through military exploits. In 197 he waged a brief and successful war against the Parthian Empire in retaliation for the support given to Pescennius Niger. The Parthian capital Ctesiphon was sacked by the legions, and the northern half of Mesopotamia was restored to Rome.

His relations with the Roman Senate were never good. He was unpopular with them from the outset, having seized power with the help of the military, and he returned the sentiment. Severus ordered the execution of dozens of Senators on charges of corruption and conspiracy against him, replacing them with his own favorites.

He also disbanded the Praetorian Guard and replaced it with one of his own, made up of 50,000 loyal soldiers mainly camped at Albanum , near Rome (also probably to grant the emperor a kind of centralized reserve). During his reign the number of legions was also increased from 25/30 to 33. He also increased the number of auxiliary corps (numerii), many of these troops coming from the Eastern borders. Additionally the annual wage for a soldier was raised from 300 to 500 denarii .

Although his actions turned Rome into a military dictatorship , he was popular with the citizens of Rome, having stamped out the rampant corruption of Commodus's reign. When he returned from his victory over the Parthians, he erected the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome.

According to Cassius Dio, however, after 197 Severus fell heavily under the influence of his Praetorian Prefect, Gaius Fulvius Plautianus , who came to have almost total control of most branches of the imperial administration. Plautianus's daughter, Fulvia Plautilla , was married to Severus's son, Caracalla. Plautianus’s excessive power came to an end in 205, when he was denounced by the Emperor's dying brother and killed. The two following praefecti, including the jurist Aemilius Papinianus , received however even larger powers.

Campaigns in Caledonia (Scotland)

Starting from 208 Severus undertook a number of military actions in Roman Britain , reconstructing Hadrian's Wall and campaigning in Scotland .

He reached the area of the Moray Firth in his last campaign in Caledonia, as was called Scotland by the Romans.. In 210 obtained a peace with the Picts that lasted practically until the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain, before falling severely ill in Eboracum (York).

Death

He is famously said to have given the advice to his sons: "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men" before he died at Eboracum on February 4 , 211. Upon his death in 211, Severus was deified by the Senate and succeeded by his sons, Caracalla and Geta , who were advised by his wife Julia Domna . The stability Severus provided the Empire was soon gone under their reign.

Accomplishments and Record

Though his military expenditure was costly to the empire, Severus was the strong, able ruler that Rome needed at the time. He began a tradition of effective emperors elevated solely by the military. His policy of an expanded and better-rewarded army was criticized by his contemporary Dio Cassius and Herodianus : in particular, they pointed out the increasing burden (in the form of taxes and services) the civilian population had to bear to maintain the new army.

Severus was also distinguished for his buildings. Apart from the triumphal arch in the Roman Forum carrying his full name, he also built the Septizodium in Rome and enriched greatly his native city of Leptis Magna (including another triumphal arch on the occasion of his visit of 203).

Severus and Christianity

Christians were persecuted during the reign of Septimus Severus. Severus allowed the enforcement of policies already long-established, which meant that Roman authorities did not intentionally seek out Christians, but when people were accused of being Christians they could either curse Jesus and make an offering to Roman gods , or be executed. Furthermore, wishing to strengthen the peace by encouraging religious harmony through syncretism , Severus tried to limit the spread of the two quarrelsome groups who refused to yield to syncretism by outlawing conversion to Christianity or Judaism . Individual officials availed themselves of the laws to proceed with rigor against the Christians. Naturally the emperor, with his strict conception of law, did not hinder such partial persecution, which took place in Egypt and the Thebaid , as well as in Africa proconsularis and the East. Christian martyrs were numerous in Alexandria (cf. Clement of Alexandria , Stromata, ii. 20; Eusebius , Church History, V., xxvi., VI., i.). No less severe were the persecutions in Africa, which seem to have begun in 197 or 198 (cf. Tertullian's Ad martyres), and included the Christians known in the Roman martyrology as the martyrs of Madaura . Probably in 202 or 203 Felicitas and Perpetua suffered for their faith. Persecution again raged for a short time under the proconsul Scapula in 211, especially in Numidia and Mauritania . Later accounts of a Gallic persecution, especially at Lyon, are legendary. In general it may thus be said that the position of the Christians under Septimius Severus was the same as under the Antonines ; but the law of this Emperor at least shows clearly that the rescript of Trajan ^{[ neededclarification]} had failed to execute its purpose.