Austria 20 Euro silver coin 2011 Carnuntum Series: Rome on the Danube
Back when the mighty Danube was the frontier of the Roman Empire, Carnuntum was the site of Septimius Severus’s declaration as Emperor in AD 193. This magnificent third silver 20 euro coin in our Rome on the Danube series does justice to that historic moment.
Then governor of Pannonia, Septimus Severus, was declared Emperor by his troops at Carnuntum – the administrative capital of the Roman province located in present-day Austria near the border with Slovakia and Hungary – and reigned until AD 211. His profile adorns the coin’s obverse in front of a reconstruction of the massive Heathen’s Gate, the ruins of which still stand outside the town today. The Villa Urbana, a palace that was once the home of Carnuntum’s wealthier inhabitants, features on the coin’s reverse. In the foreground stands a Roman legionary tending to his armour, beside him a guard with his lance and shield.
quality: proof
collection: Rome on the Danube
face value: 20 Euro
date of issue: 13.04.2011
coin design: Mag. Helmut Andexlinger / Herbert Wähner
diameter: 34.00 mm
alloy: Silver Ag 900
fine weight: 18.00 g
total weight: 20.00 g
Septimius Severus (Latin: Lucius Septimius Severus Augustus; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211), also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the cursus honorum—the customary succession of offices - under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of Emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.
After deposing and killing the incumbent emperor Didius Julianus, Severus fought his rival claimants, the generals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. Niger was defeated in 194 at the Battle of Issus in Cilicia. Later that year Severus waged a short punitive campaign beyond the eastern frontier, annexing the Kingdom of Osroene as a new province. Severus defeated Albinus three years later at the Battle of Lugdunum in Gaul.
After consolidating his rule over the western provinces, Severus waged another brief, more successful war in the east against the Parthian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 197 and expanding the eastern frontier to the Tigris. Furthermore, he enlarged and fortified the Limes Arabicus in Arabia Petraea. In 202, he campaigned in Africa and Mauretania against the Garamantes; capturing their capital Garama and expanding the Limes Tripolitanus along the southern frontier of the empire.
Late in his reign he travelled to Britain, strengthening Hadrian's Wall and reoccupying the Antonine Wall. In 208 he invaded Caledonia (modern Scotland), but his ambitions were cut short when he fell fatally ill in late 210. Severus died in early 211 at Eboracum, succeeded by his sons Caracalla and Geta. With the succession of his sons, Severus founded the Severan dynasty, the last dynasty of the empire before the Crisis of the Third Century.