Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

76 3 Military confrontations
Fig. 5 Coin of Severus Alexander, reverse, 233
(Cohen, H. (1955 2 ) Description historique des monnaies frapées sous l’empire romain
communément appelées médailles impériales IV/2: Alexandre Sévère nr. 446)
(Cabinet de France. Médaillon de bronze)
The biography follows other much more concise testimonies, 21 which
the author of the Historia Augusta embellishes rhetorically. Topoi such as the
elaborate preparations for the war, the flight of the Persian king, the victory
of Severus Alexander and his triumph in Rome appear in the majority
of the extant sources; the anonymous author of the biography elaborates
on these with much literary freedom and offers the more questionable
and remote testimonies in the place of a well-informed and contemporary
source. The account is clearly panegyrical. 22 Numismatic evidence attests
to a Roman victory and celebrates the emperor’s successful return from the
East.
The reverse of a coin dated to the year 233 depicts Severus Alexander
crowned by the goddess of victory Victoria, at whose feet we see the personified
river gods Euphrates and Tigris (fig. 5). The propagandistic character
of the image is obvious. Strictly speaking, a representation of the emperor
as the master over the two rivers was not correct because this claim did
not correspond to the actual frontier between the Roman and the Sasanian
Empire. It is noteworthy that the legend (pm trp xii cos iii pp), which
shows parts of the typical imperial titulature, does not include the titles
Parthicus maximus or Persicus maximus. 23 No other testimonies confirm
Rome’s territorial gains as they are suggested by the coin.
21 Cf. n. 14. 22 Rösger 1978: 167–74.
23 Kienast 1990: 177–8; on the question whether these titles are attested at all for Severus Alexander
see Winter 1988: 60–2; on the liberal use of the terms Parthi/Persae see Kettenhofen 1984: 189 and
Winter 1988: 227.