Probably quite early in his reign, as the portrait looks quite a bit like Severus Alexander.
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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According to the Historia Augusta, certainly! IRL? Who knows...
At the least, by his own coins and busts, he had one hell of a chin!
Yes, definitely, but there might be some element of playing the part of the soldier from the frontiers - the brutal barbarian - to keep people in line. Still, Herodian does mention that he was of an impressive size and he's generally more reliable than the Historia Augusta, right?
Whether propaganda or reality, I love the depiction. Not a great Emperor, but what a memorable look!
More reliable than the Historia Augusta is beating the fastest snail at the footrace XD
But Herodian is generally (though not universally) considered reliable, yes.
He is indeed an interesting character and emperor, and I suppose his ascend is the start of the soldier-emperors and the Crisis in earnest. The next 50 years are going to be rough for the Romans.
Which reminds me, I should post an Aurelian coin one of these days.
I recently read a really fascinating theory that Aurelian's reforms were what triggered the hyperinflation of the late 3rd century. The basic idea being that his reforms to revaluate the currency were what led to the final collapse of the kind of pseudofiat and pseudorepresentative valuation that Roman currency had been coasting on, suggesting that the ~100% price inflation up until then was actually mild compared to how little silver actually remained in the coins.
Not sure how much I buy it, but it's something I've been meaning to read more about!
I don't know much about the fiscal history of the Roman Empire, except that it seems like they didn't really understand inflation. But then again - I don't think that can be true, can it? It seems like such a fundamental and basic concept that it's hard to imagine a sophisticated society not having a basic grasp of it.
Can you recommend a good source for the fiscal history of the Roman Empire?
It's a funny thing, what concepts and understanding we take for granted. As matter of monetary supply-and-demand, the Romans had a basic understanding of inflation, but didn't seem to fully comprehend that their currency had taken on a 'life of its own' in becoming an unintentional fiat, and connected the decline of the currency's purchasing power with the reduction of its silver content (to a limited degree true) - something very hard to counteract when the low and high silver content coinage co-existed and were difficult to recall. That Aurelian's currency reforms included a recall of debased currency, ironically, may have been one of the big contributing factors to why increasing the silver content (albeit to a still-marginal level) actually hurt the currency's value.
As to why they reduced its silver content, that's just the classic "Emperors need money NOW, damn the next fiscal year(s)"
Unfortunately, that's one of the things I've been meaning to read up on. I just finished The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy in December, but that's more general and currency, specifically, is only in focus for a few of the essays.
I'll throw my 2c into the end of this thread - Mike Duncan's The History of Rome podcast (Probably around 90 hours total) does go into reasonable detail on the various attempts at inflationary control, devaluation and attempted revaluation of the coins, some weird barter attempts that were tried and failed etc.
Highly digestible on a commute. I've listened to it fully through twice.