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Sestertius of the notorious Roman emperor Commodus, minted at Rome in 192 CE, the last year of his reign. On the obverse, the bust of Commodus; on the reverse, the personification of Africa greets Hercules. Africa holds a sheaf of wheat (representing the grain the province produced) and a sistrum (the rattle associated with the goddess Isis), while Hercules stands on a ship's prow and holds his club.

The seemingly innocuous imagery of this coin masks the megalomania that characterized Commodus' final years. He is here styled Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus, his birth name; his father Marcus Aurelius had renamed him M. Aurelius Antoninus Commodus upon making him Caesar, but Commodus ultimately spurned both this name and his father's heritage. His identification with Hercules, a constant of his reign, reached a fever pitch at this time: the emperor officially styled himself "Roman Hercules" (Hercules Romanus) and engaged in beast-hunts (venationes) and gladiatorial matches designed to evoke Hercules' Twelve Labors. (In one infamous incident, he threatened to cast the audience in the arena as the Stymphalian Birds and mow them down with arrows.) Taking a dizzying array of new cognomina (Amazonius, Invictus, Exsuperatorius, etc.), Commodus demanded that each month of the year be named after one of his titles, and he even floated the idea of renaming Rome Colonia Aelia Commoda after himself. By December 192 his advisors had had enough, and a conspiracy was put in train, into which his mistress Marcia was recruited. She poisoned him; when this did not kill him, his personal trainer, one Narcissus, strangled him in his bath. With him ended the dynasty begun by Nerva nearly a century before.

Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

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