Name: Roman Empire Probus 281 CE Billon Antoninianus, Mars the Peacemaker Walking with Olive Branch
SKU: R#9799
Price: 100.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Roman Empire Probus 281 CE Billon Antoninianus, Mars the Peacemaker Walking with Olive Branch

Mars — the god of war, father of Romulus, patron of every Roman military campaign — is walking toward you holding an olive branch. He still carries the spear. He still carries the shield. But the branch is there, raised, in his advancing hand. The MARTI PACIFERO antoninianus of Probus is the most theologically audacious coin in the entire PACIF series: not a hero choosing peace after his labors, but the war god himself being pacified. Struck at Ticinum in 281 CE, the final full year of Roman stability before Probus’s murder. Billon antoninianus, 3.7 g, 22 mm, EF condition, beautiful example. Certificate of Authenticity included. Insured shipping from New York City. One available.

$100.00

1 in stock

SKU: R#9799Categories: COINS, NEW ARRIVALS, ROMAN

Product Description

The Roman religious calendar opened with March — Martius, named for the god of war. Every military campaign season began with rituals to Mars. The armilustrium purified the army’s weapons in his name. Romulus, the founder of Rome, was his son. Of all the divine figures on Roman coinage, Mars was the one most completely identified with war itself, not as a patron of a particular quality or skill but as the embodiment of organized, state-sanctioned violence.

Which is precisely why putting an olive branch in his hand meant something.

Probus issued MARTI PACIFERO antoninianii from multiple mints across his reign, and the Ticinum workshop struck them in 281 CE as part of its 9th emission. The reverse shows Mars not standing at rest but advancing — walking left, forward, in the active posture of a deity on his way somewhere. He carries his spear. He carries his shield. These are not absent. But in his raised right hand, extended toward the viewer, is an olive branch.

The deliberateness of that combination is the type’s argument. A different ideology would have shown Mars setting down the spear — the warrior at peace, weapons aside. Probus’s die-cutters did not do that. Mars keeps the weapons and adds the peace symbol. The god of war has not been disarmed; he has expanded his portfolio. He can do both. And in 281 CE, with the Rhine secured, the Danube frontier stabilized, the Palmyrene and Gallic secessions decades in the past, and the legions set to work planting vineyards in recovered provincial land, that was precisely the condition Probus was claiming he had achieved: military strength in service of a peace durable enough that the god of war himself had endorsed it.

The inscription above confirms it. MARTI PACIFERO — to Mars the Peacemaker — is a dedicatory phrase, an act of religious worship framed as policy statement. The emperor is not merely claiming peace; he is attributing it to Mars, asking the god of war to be its patron. If Mars protects the peace, then disrupting the peace is an offense against Mars.

Probus’s political genius in this type is that it does not require the audience to believe the war is over. Mars still has the spear. War remains available. But the god who controls war has chosen, for now, to carry the branch instead. The peace is contingent on continued loyalty to the emperor who achieved it — and to the divine patron who sanctioned it.

The EF condition of this example makes the branch visible in Mars’s hand exactly as the die-cutter intended. The walking figure, the three attributes, the advancing posture — all are present in the sharpness that defines the type’s purpose.

He was murdered the following year. The peace he claimed did not survive him. But the coin did.

WHAT THE COIN CARRIES — OBVERSE & REVERSE:

On the obverse: the radiate, cuirassed bust of Probus faces right, the obverse legend identifying him with the formulaic P F — Pius Felix, pious and fortunate — added to the imperial titles. On the reverse: Mars advances left, the god of war in full motion, holding an olive branch raised in his right hand while carrying a spear and shield — the complete war apparatus plus the single peace attribute, all present simultaneously. The MARTI PACIFERO legend encircles the composition. The Ticinum mint mark and the 9th emission field mark appear in the exergue and left field. At 3.7 grams and 22 millimeters in EF condition, the walking figure of Mars and the olive branch in his hand are both fully legible — the essential requirement for this type to fulfill its iconographic purpose.

COIN DETAILS:

Civilization: Roman Empire
Ruler / Issuing Authority: Probus (Marcus Aurelius Probus)
Region: Northern Italy
Mint: Ticinum (modern Pavia, Lombardy)
Date: Struck 281 CE, 9th emission
Denomination: Billon Antoninianus
Metal: Billon (silvered bronze alloy)
Weight: 3.7 g
Diameter: 22 mm
Obverse: Radiate, cuirassed bust of Probus right
Obverse Legend: IMP C PROBVS P F AVG
Reverse: Mars advancing left, olive branch in raised right hand, spear and shield; I in left field; Ticinum mint mark and officina in exergue
Reverse Legend: MARTI PACIF (abbreviated MARTI PACIFERO)
Strike: EF, beautiful example
Condition: EF
Inventory Number / SKU: R#9799
Included: Certificate of Authenticity
Shipping: Fast insured shipping from New York City

Why This Coin Belongs

1. MARTI PACIFERO is the most theologically radical statement in the Probus PACIF series.
Hercules the Peacemaker is a hero choosing peace after his labors — a human-scale claim. Mars the Peacemaker is the god of war himself endorsing peace — a divine-scale claim of an entirely different order. The MARTI PACIFERO type takes the most war-identified deity in the Roman pantheon and gives him the peace attribute, which no other type in the series attempts. Collectors who know the ERCVLI PACIF type specifically seek the MARTI PACIF as the more extreme theological statement.

2. Mars keeps his weapons — he has not put them down.
The design is precise: Mars walks with olive branch, spear, and shield simultaneously. This is not a pacified Mars, disarmed and converted. It is a Mars who has chosen to carry peace alongside war, which is a different and more powerful claim. The three attributes in one figure assert that military strength and civil peace are not opposites but complements — the same argument Probus made with his administration for six years.

3. The walking pose gives this reverse a kinetic energy the other PACIF types lack.
Where Hercules in the ERCVLI PACIFERO type stands (static, attributes displayed), Mars here advances — he is in motion, walking toward the viewer. The advancing Mars is a deity with agency and purpose, not a symbol posed for contemplation. The walking posture makes the olive branch feel like an active offering rather than a passive attribute, and it gives the composition a dramatic forward energy specific to this type.

4. Struck in 281 CE — the peak of Probus’s achieved stability.
The 9th emission from Ticinum dates specifically to 281 CE, the last full year of the most stable period in the western Roman Empire since the Antonines. The MARTI PACIFERO at this moment is not a campaign promise or a propaganda aspiration — it is a retrospective claim. The wars were over. Mars had delivered peace. One year later Probus was dead, and the peace died with him.

5. EF condition — the highest of the Probus series at OCN.
EF preservation places this at the top of the condition range for the Probus antoninianus. The olive branch in Mars’s extended hand, the individual attributes clearly separated, the advancing posture readable at a glance — this is the type in the condition where its theological argument is fully legible, which is also where its collector value concentrates.

AS A GIFT:

A natural gift for anyone drawn to Roman religion, military history, or the political philosophy of the late empire. The MARTI PACIFERO type poses a question — can the god of war be a peacemaker without ceasing to be the god of war? — and answers it in metal struck in 281 CE, when Probus thought the answer was yes.

For a collector of Roman mythology, a third-century specialist, or anyone marking a milestone with a connection to Rome or to the idea of peace maintained by strength, this arrives in EF condition with a Certificate of Authenticity and ships insured from New York City.

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THE GOD OF WAR. WALKING. HOLDING AN OLIVE BRANCH. TICINUM, 281 CE.

Mars still carries the spear. He still carries the shield. But the branch is raised. In 281 CE, at the peak of Probus’s achieved peace, the war god himself was asked to be its patron. EF at 3.7 grams and 22 millimeters — the most theologically charged reverse in the Probus series.

→ Add to Cart now. MARTI PACIFERO antoninianii of Probus in EF from the Ticinum mint are the type that mythological and third-century collectors pair with the ERCVLI PACIF to complete the PACIF series.