Macrinus Bronze Sestertius, RIC IV Macrinus 119b

Monetary and Fiscal Context in 217 AD

The appearance of the sestertius RIC IV Macrinus 119b in 217 AD occurred against a backdrop of severe fiscal strain and monetary manipulation inherited from the Severan dynasty. Caracalla had expanded military expenditures and imperial obligations, financing them in part through the debasement of the silver denarius and the creation in 215 AD of the double denarius, known to modern numismatists as the antoninianus. Upon seizing power in April 217 AD following Caracalla's murder near Carrhae, Macrinus confronted an empire burdened by protracted conflict with Parthia and discontent among the troops over reduced stipends. In response to monetary instability, Macrinus enacted fiscal reforms aimed at restoring confidence in Roman money. He suspended production of the antoninianus at Rome and elevated the silver weight and fineness of the denarius back to standards comparable to the early reign of Septimius Severus. Within this calibrated system, the sestertius retained its traditional structural role as the principal large copper-alloy denomination. Valued at one quarter of a silver denarius and one hundredth of an aureus, the sestertius was integral to daily high-value retail transactions, municipal market accounting, and state payments across the Italian peninsula and the western provinces. Because the sestertius carried traditional prestige and substantial surface area for visual propaganda, its regular production was essential for establishing imperial continuity, asserting legitimacy, and sustaining metropolitan economic life.

Metropolitan Mint Operations and Physical Fabric

All specimens belonging to RIC IV Macrinus 119b were struck at the imperial mint of Rome. A notable historical circumstance of this emission is that Macrinus governed the empire entirely in absentia, conducting administrative and military affairs from Antioch and northern Syria without ever setting foot in the capital before his downfall in June 218 AD. Official portrait models and imperial titulature were dispatched by imperial couriers from the eastern headquarters to Rome, where mint celators interpreted them onto dies for all three metals. The production of copper-alloy coinage at Rome maintained the traditional constitutional mark S C, denoting Senatus Consulto (by decree of the Senate). While formal control of the mint remained firmly under imperial procurators, the retention of S C underscored the polite fiction of senatorial authority over civic base-metal issues. In terms of physical fabric, third-century sestertii were struck on cast flans prepared from copper alloys that historically consisted of orichalcum, a copper-zinc brass, though metallurgical analyses of early third-century issues reveal increasing proportions of recycled scrap containing tin and lead. Weight standards for sestertii in this period generally fluctuated between 20 and 26 grams, with flan diameters typically spanning 28 to 33 millimeters. Blanks were struck between engraved iron or bronze dies, with the lower die fixed into an anvil and the upper die held by hand, often resulting in minor axial misalignments.

Obverse Portraiture and Regal Representation

The obverse of RIC IV Macrinus 119b is defined specifically by its bust treatment: a bust of Macrinus facing right, wearing a laurel wreath and dressed in military cuirass. This cuirassed bust without drapery distinguishes type 119b from subtype 119a, which features a bust with both drapery and cuirass or drapery alone. The portraiture of Macrinus at Rome experienced a rapid iconographic evolution that modern scholarship divides into distinct stylistic phases. Because the celators at Rome lacked first-hand familiarity with the new ruler in mid-217 AD, the earliest obverse dies depicted Macrinus with a compact, cropped beard and facial features closely resembling those of Caracalla or the mature Septimius Severus. Over the summer and autumn of 217 AD, as more precise likenesses arrived from Antioch, the Rome mint adopted an elongated facial profile with a fuller, square-trimmed beard reflecting the philosophical and legal inclinations of an equestrian jurist. On RIC IV Macrinus 119b, the laurel wreath serves as the supreme emblem of victorious imperial majesty, while the cuirass highlights the emperor's identity as supreme military commander (imperator), an indispensable visual claim for an equestrian whose legitimacy was constantly questioned by the military elite.

Reverse Iconography of Jupiter

The reverse of RIC IV Macrinus 119b features the nude figure of Jupiter standing and facing left. The king of the gods is depicted in heroic nudity with a chlamys, or cloak, draped loosely over his left arm. In his extended right hand he holds a thunderbolt, the weapon of divine retribution and celestial protection, while his left hand rests upon a tall vertical sceptre, signifying supreme sovereign rule. Flanking the lower fields of the composition are the bold capital letters S and C. In the political language of imperial Rome, Jupiter served as the supreme patron and protector of the state (Iuppiter Conservator and Iuppiter Propugnator). For an usurper or unheralded equestrian ruler, invoking Jupiter was a paramount ideological strategy. By placing Jupiter upon the reverse of his earliest bronze issues, Macrinus presented his accession not as a bloody coup or an opportunistic seizure of power, but as a divinely sanctioned restoration of cosmic order. The thunderbolt and sceptre conveyed that divine might defended the princeps and that earthly sovereignty flowed directly from the supreme god of the Capitoline pantheon.

Inscriptions and Epigraphic Analysis

The legends on RIC IV Macrinus 119b provide exact epigraphic testimony regarding the constitutional positioning of Macrinus during the first year of his reign. The obverse inscription reads IMP CAES M OPEL SEV MACRINVS AVG, expanding to Imperator Caesar Marcus Opellius Severus Macrinus Augustus. The initial titles Imperator and Caesar affirm his military primacy and imperial rank, while his gentilicium and cognomen (Marcus Opellius Macrinus) are modified by the calculated insertion of SEV (Severus). By incorporating the name Severus into his official imperial nomenclature, Macrinus sought fictitious affiliation with the Severan dynasty, reassuring the legionaries who remained intensely loyal to the memory of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. The reverse legend reads PONTIF MAX TR P P P S C, expanding to Pontifex Maximus, Tribunicia Potestate, Pater Patriae, Senatus Consulto. The inclusion of PONTIF MAX (supreme pontiff) and P P (father of the fatherland) reveals that Macrinus accepted these supreme honours shortly after his accession, with the Senate formally ratifying them at Rome in 217 AD. The unnumbered TR P indicates his first term of tribunician power, securely placing the conception and initial production of this type within the calendar year 217 AD, before the assumption of a second tribunician term (TR P II) at the start of 218 AD.

Typological Classification and Chronological Framework

Within modern numismatic taxonomy, this type is catalogued as RIC IV Part II Macrinus 119b, cross-referenced in the British Museum collection under BMCRE V, pages 518 to 522. The broader umbrella type RIC 119 encompasses the first-issue Jupiter bronze sestertii bearing the reverse legend PONTIF MAX TR P P P S C. The specific classification 119b is distinguished solely by its obverse bust variety, which is laureate and cuirassed, set apart from 119a which displays a draped bust. Chronologically, the type belongs strictly to the first coinage period of Macrinus, running from late April 217 AD through December 217 AD. It was issued alongside companion sestertii bearing reverse personifications such as Fides Militum, Salus, and Securitas, all sharing identical first-emission titulature. When Macrinus assumed the consulship alongside his second tribunician renewal on 1 January 218 AD, the Rome mint replaced the unnumbered TR P legends with updated formulas such as PONTIF MAX TR P II COS P P, effectively terminating the production of dies for RIC 119b. Consequently, the issue was struck over a window of approximately eight months, representing one of the earliest bronze representations of the new regime.

Circulation, Hoard Evidence, and Survival

The monetary circulation of RIC IV Macrinus 119b was shaped by the brevity of Macrinus's fourteen-month reign and the subsequent political damnatio memoriae enacted following his defeat by Elagabalus in June 218 AD. Although Macrinus was proclaimed an enemy of the state upon the Severan restoration, bronze coins of his reign were not systematically recalled or melted down on a universal scale, as the physical cost of demonetizing base-metal currency was economically impractical for Roman authorities. Instead, sestertii such as RIC 119b entered the active currency stream and circulated alongside the vast surviving mass of Antonine and Severan bronze. Findspot evidence from western European river deposits, military settlements on the Rhine and Danube limes, and Romano-British villa excavations demonstrates that Severan-era sestertii remained in circulation well into the mid-third century, often circulating until the complete collapse of large base-metal coinage under Gallienus and Claudius Gothicus in the late 260s AD. Due to the limited operational timeframe of the first issue in 217 AD, surviving specimens of RIC 119b are comparatively scarce compared to the prolific sestertii of Caracalla or Alexander Severus, and preserved examples frequently exhibit noticeable wear and surface pitting indicative of decades of transactional use.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. V: Pertinax to Elagabalus. pp. 518-522
2. The Roman Coinage of Macrinus and Diadumenian. Numismatische Zeitschrift 93, pp. 21-40
3. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC IV Macrinus 119b. ric.4.mcs.119b
4. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. IV, Part II: Macrinus to Pupienus. p. 14, no. 119b