The Romans considered such claims intolerant, and eventually led to the persecution of Christians. Christ has already won the crown of absolute victory, and does not need to be given another crown, since this would be meaningless or devalue His victory, so celebrated in the previous chapter. To see Christ here would be a kind of double symbolism uncharacteristic of Scripture. Luther sees this in time progression after the period of Roman conquest brought about in the breaking of the first seal. But He is also just and must punish sin.
War is one of the results of sin.
Bands of competing armies went about the countryside at this time, destroying crops and taking food stores for themselves. This pillaging of food supplies combined with drought at this time made food very scarce and precious. The prices he calls out for the basic staples of life are extraordinarily high. The scales indicate that food was carefully measured. Of course such economic oppression strikes the common man and the poor hardest.