Macrinus, 217 – 218. Aureus 217-218, AV 20 mm, 7.40 g. IMP C M OPEL SEV – MACRINVS AVG Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust r. Rev. LIBERALITAS AVG Macrinus and Diadumenianus seated l. on platform; behind officer standing l.; before Liberalitas, holding abacus and cornucopiae. Below platform, citizen. C 43. BMC 71. RIC 79. Kent-Hirmer pl. 97, 414. Calicó 2947. Very rare and in exceptional condition for the issue. A spectacular portrait struck in high relief and a very interesting reverse composition. Virtually as struck and FdcGraded Ch MS, Strike: 5/5, Surface: 5/5 - Fine Style, NGC photo certificate number 8583630-001 Privately purchased from MDC. On 8 April AD 217, Caracalla was struck down by the sword of his bodyguard, Julius Martialus, while he stopped to relieve himself at the side of a road in Mesopotamia at the outset of his great Parthian campaign. Martialus was said to have murdered him out of anger that he was not promoted to the rank of centurion, but many suspected that he was merely the agent in a plot orchestrated by M. Opellius Macrinus, Caracalla’s praetorian prefect. Macrinus was proclaimed the new emperor on 11 April 217 and immediately set about ingratiating himself with the soldiery through gifts of money and by appointing his nine-year-old son Diadumenian as Caesar. At the same time he was trying to buy the loyalty of the campaigning army in Mesopotamia, Macrinus attempted to do the same in Rome to gain the support of the populace against potential rivals. This remarkable gold aureus was struck at Rome for the specific purpose of distribution to the populace, as indicated by the reverse type. It depicts Macrinus and Diadumenian seated on a platform, ready to give money to a citizen below, with the assistance of Liberalitas, the Roman personification of generosity and largesse. The detailed treatment of the platform, with its slightly raised base and circular ornamentation suggest that the engraver was thinking of a specific platform in Rome (evidently not the Rostra), giving the impression that Macrinus and Diadumenian might already be in the city or that their arrival was imminent when they were still far off in the eastern provinces. Unfortunately, it turned out that gold alone could not buy the army, the people, and the empire, as Macrinus had hoped. Despite his monetary distributions, he quickly made himself deeply unpopular through his other policies. He brought shame upon the army by negotiating a withdrawal from Parthian territory at the cost of a high indemnity and by accepting inglorious diplomatic settlements to ongoing conflicts in Armenia and Dacia. He also undercut the initial goodwill paid for by his largesse by debasing the standard of the empire’s silver coinage and by reducing the starting pay of the Roman legionary. While Macrinus was inadvertently turning his soldiers against him, Julia Maesa, the maternal aunt of the deceased Caracalla, was plotting in Syria to place her fourteen-year-old grandson, Varius Avitius Bassianus (later popularly known as Elagabalus), on the imperial throne and restore the Severan dynasty. When Macrinus learned of this rebellion, he dispatched his praetorian prefect, Ulpius Julianus, at the head of legio II Parthica with the expectation that they would crush Bassianus. Macrinus was disappointed in this expectation. Instead, Julianus was lynched by his legionaries, who then promptly joined the Severan cause against Macrinus and Diadumenian. Although father and son still retained some loyal troops at Antioch, they were unable to withstand the combined might of two full legions that now supported Julia Maesa and her grandson. Macrinus and Diadumenian were defeated in battle on 8 June AD 218 and then attempted to flee for their lives. Diadumenian made for the Euphrates River, but he was killed before he could find safety in the borderlands of the Roman and Parthian empires. Macrinus did only a little better than his son. He made his way through Asia Minor, planning to sail to Rome in the hope that he would still find support in the capital. Just as he was about to cross into Europe, Macrinus was captured by his enemies at Calchedon and executed. The Senate, which had recognized him with the titles of Pater Patriae and Parthicus Maximus a scant twelve months before, now decreed a damnatio memoriae for Macrinus and Diadumenian. Their statues were thrown down and their names stricken from monuments as if they had never existed. Please find here the video of the coin