Roman Empire Tacitus Eternal Rome

Although an ageing man when he became the last emperor to be elected to the purple by the Senate on the 25th September AD 275, Tacitus was a Roman by birth and a Senator, and accepted the burden that was thrust on his shoulders out of a sense of duty for his country. The reverse type that we see on this rare aureus Romae Aeternae, the Eternal Rome, coupled with the the restoration of the old senatorial letters SC [Senatus Consulto] in the exergue is indicative of this. Once his ascension to the purple had been ratified by the army he arrived for a short stay in Rome, before he was obliged to travel east to Asia Minor to quell troubles arising from the auxiliary troops gathered by his predecessor Aurelian, who had enlisted Scythian and Gothic troops to aid him in a campaign against Persia.

With the campaign no longer expected to go ahead, the gathered men were restless and had plundered several towns in the Eastern Roman provinces. Tacitus, with the aid of his half-brother the Praetorian Prefect Florian, pacified some and defeated others, but was overcome by fatigue, old-age and the hardships of campaign and died at Tyana in Cappadocia in April 276. ROMAE AETERNAE:Eternal Rome.