Rome’s thousandth year, celebrated by an Arab
In 248 Rome celebrated its millennium. The emperor who presided over the ceremonies was born in Syria, and the series of coins struck for the occasion is among the most collected of the third century.
A symbolic date
Tradition puts the founding of Rome in 753 BC. The year 248 therefore marked the thousandth anniversary, and Philip the Arab staged secular games on an exceptional scale: shows, combats, exotic animals brought from Africa and the East.
The context makes the celebration almost paradoxical. The empire was under pressure on the Danube, the finances were strained, and Philip himself had come to power in 244 after the obscure death of Gordian III on campaign against the Persians. Celebrating a thousand years of continuity was also a way of asserting a fragile legitimacy.
The SAECVLARES AVGG series
The commemorative coinage is abundant and easily recognised: the legend SAECVLARES AVGG accompanies a series of animals — lion, stag, antelope, hippopotamus, Roman she-wolf — each tied to a different officina, identifiable by a numeral in the exergue.
That is what makes it ideal collecting ground: the series is coherent, complete, affordable, and each coin attaches to a precisely dated event. Few Roman issues offer that combination.
What it shows about power
The animals figured are those of the games themselves. The coin serves as programme and as souvenir: it tells the whole empire what happened in the Colosseum, for people who were not there.
Philip was killed the following year by Trajan Decius. The millennium was the high point of his reign, and his coin series has outlived his reputation by a wide margin.
Further reading
Zosimus, New History, book I, on the games of 248.
C. Körner, Philippus Arabs, Berlin, 2002.