Roman Imperial: Marcus Aurelius, as Augustus (AD 161-180). AV aureus (19mm, 7.33 gm, 5h). NGC AU 5/5 - 4/5, edge mark, brushed....

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Marcus Aurelius, as Augustus (AD 161-180). AV aureus (19mm, 7.33 gm, 5h). NGC AU 5/5 - 4/5, edge mark, brushed. Rome, AD 161-162. IMP M AVREL ANTONINVS AVG P M, bareheaded, draped, and cuirassed bust of Marcus Aurelius right / SALVTI AVGVSTOR TR P XVI, Salus standing facing, head left, patera in outstretched right hand, feeding serpent coiled around altar before, scepter cradled in left arm. Calicó 1912. RIC III 56. Mirror-like surfaces on intricate dies.

This reverse depicts Salus, goddess of healing, and invokes her help in preserving the "health of the emperors." Marcus Aurelius was never in the best of health and his youthful letters to his mentor, Fronto, serendipitously preserved in a medieval palimpsest, record his frequent complaints of chills, fevers, chest colds, and other varying illnesses. As emperor, the stresses of office were exacerbated by frequent bouts of gastric and respiratory trouble. He was fortunate, then, to have the services of Galen, the greatest physician of his age, who kept him going with a variety of treatments, all carefully recorded in his journals. Galen was also needed as a kind of minister of public health to fight the terrible plague, perhaps smallpox, that swept the classical world after AD 163, carrying off up to half the Roman Empire's population. At that time, invocations for the health of the rulers and the general populace become increasingly common on the Roman coinage.

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