Caracalla augustus, 198 – 217. Aureus 210-213, AV 21 mm, 7.22 g. ANTONINVS – PIVS AVG BRIT Laureate head r. Rev. SECVRITATI PERPETVAE Securitas seated r. by altar, propping head on r. hand and holding sceptre. C 575. BMC 101. RIC 229a. Calicó 2813. Rare. A bold portrait of fine style struck on a very broad flan. About extremely fine / extremely fineGraded Ch XF, Strike: 5/5, Surface: 4/5, NGC photo certificate number 8360704-002 Ex MDC sale 18, 2026, 242. Unfortunately, this extremely rare gold aureus lacks Caracalla’s full imperial titulature, making it difficult to date more precisely than the period from AD 210 to 213. The reverse type and legend indicate that the coin was dedicated to the perpetual security of the Roman state, but there are many occasions in the period of issue to which this might apply. On February 4, 211, Septimius Severus fell ill and died while campaigning in Britannia, leaving Caracalla and his brother Geta to succeed him. The transition of power was always worrisome to Rome and the empire, as it increasingly involved violence in the late second and third centuries. Thus, a type advertising perpetual security would have been appropriately reassuring immediately after the death of Severus. It also might have made sense at the beginning of 212 to allay concerns that his murder of Geta on December 26, 211, might cause instability or expand into a wider purge. Perpetual security might also refer to Caracalla’s enactment of the constitutio Antoniniana in 212. This edict granted full Roman citizen rights to almost every free inhabitant of the empire. While the edict increased security by giving provincials a sense of equal partnership in the Roman imperial project, its real goal was to improve the empire's weakening financial stability. It expanded the obligation of public service and increased revenue through inheritance and emancipation taxes, which were levied only on Roman citizens. Increased revenue was needed to keep up with military raises and other expenses, which ultimately forced Caracalla to debase the currency and introduce the antoninianus denomination (a double denarius with a silver content of only 1.5 denarii) in 215. The financial outlook of the imperial treasury in 212 and after would have made an appeal to perpetual security very timely. It is perhaps somewhat less likely that the invocation of perpetual security refers to Caracalla’s brief but successful campaign against the Alemanni in 213. At the time, the Alemanni posed no real threat to Rome or the empire (unlike several decades later). Caracalla is said to have responded to a request from the Alemanni for aid against their neighbors, only to turn on them, killing their warriors and seizing parts of their territory. While this aureus expresses Caracalla’s concern for perpetual security in the period from 210-213, he probably should have paid more attention to Securitas later in his reign, which was brought to an end by the sword of a disgruntled bodyguard while the emperor relieved himself at the side of a road. Please find here the video of the coin