It´s not ironic. From the roman point of view, peace, especially peace in the mainland, was directly connected with military strength and military success.
I'm with you about the role of
military strength in achieving
peace from the
roman point of view!. May be saying 'ironic' was a
bit too much in this case... then the word 'strange' would be a
bit more proper.
Still,
cuirassed type of
bust was not really employed in combination with
PAX on coinage of
Aurelius or
Verus, even on bronzes.
Cuirassed bust was much more often on the coins when the war was in active phase, like earlier in
Armenia and later during war affairs with Germans and Sarmatians, when only
cuirassed bust was immediately included in the mix to support
military propaganda. So, this one where
Pax was combined with
cuirassed bust appeared to be sporadic, and that is what I was trying to point out with my limited English)
Shanxi, thank you for your note!
