Macrinus Silver Denarius RIC IV Macrinus 60b

Monetary Context and Economic Reforms

The monetary landscape of AD 217 was heavily destabilized following the sudden murder of Caracalla near Carrhae during the Parthian campaign. Caracalla had expanded military pay and expenditures, introducing the double denarius or antoninianus while reducing the silver content of the traditional denarius to roughly fifty percent. Upon his elevation by the eastern legions, Marcus Opellius Macrinus faced acute fiscal crises, requiring vast sums to maintain troop loyalty while negotiating a costly settlement with Parthia. Despite these financial pressures, numismatic analysis demonstrates that Macrinus sought to enact an immediate monetary reform. He discontinued the striking of the antoninianus at Rome and attempted to stabilize the denarius standard. The denarii struck under his authority, including RIC IV Macrinus 60b, maintained a theoretical weight standard averaging between 3.0 and 3.3 grams, with a silver fineness hovering around fifty to fifty-five percent. By issuing denarii bearing legends like FELICITAS TEMPORVM, the administration attempted to restore civilian and senatorial confidence in imperial governance, projecting an aura of renewed civil peace, divine favor, and fiscal restoration after years of erratic fiscal extractions under the Severan dynasts.

Production Standards and Mint Attribution

The manufacture of RIC IV Macrinus 60b took place at the primary imperial mint located in Rome. While an auxiliary eastern mint operating at Antioch produced substantial coinages during this reign to supply the eastern legions and settle wartime indemnities, Rome retained responsibility for issuing the central senatorial and imperial denominations intended for wider circulation across the western provinces. Die engravers at Rome operated within an established bureaucratic hierarchy, utilizing carved bronze or hardened iron dies struck manually onto cast silver flans. The stylistic execution of the Roman mint during this phase is characterized by crisp lettering, neat border beading, and restrained, carefully balanced figurative relief. Flans were generally prepared with circular regularity, although slight variations in thickness and diameter between eighteen and twenty millimeters were common. Production of the FELICITAS TEMPORVM reverse type was extensive, necessitating multiple active die pairings to strike denarii alongside complementary gold aurei and base metal sestertii sharing the same thematic motifs.

Obverse Portraiture and Iconography

The obverse of RIC IV Macrinus 60b exhibits a right-facing bust of Macrinus, wearing a laurel wreath and protective military cuirass. A distinguishing typological feature of this specific catalog entry is the rendering of the emperor's facial hair as a long, full beard. Scholars of Severan numismatics divide Macrinus's portraiture into distinct sequential groups based upon facial styling and beard length. Initial issues struck immediately after his accession in April AD 217 depicted Macrinus with short, tightly cropped hair and a trimmed beard, often closely resembling portraits of Caracalla or Lucius Verus as engravers worked without direct life models. Over the course of late AD 217 and early AD 218, the imperial mint adopted a more naturalistic, distinguished depiction featuring an elongated beard. This extended beard emphasized mature wisdom, gravitas, and judicial authority, deliberate visual choices for a ruler of equestrian origin who needed to establish legitimacy before a skeptical Senate. The cuirass underscored his standing as supreme commander of the legions, even though Macrinus never visited Rome during his fourteen-month reign.

Reverse Iconography of Felicitas

The reverse of the coin illustrates the standing figure of Felicitas, personifying temporal happiness, good fortune, and state success. Draped in a stola and mantle, Felicitas stands oriented to the left. In her right hand, she elevates a long caduceus, an ancient emblem of peace, commerce, and diplomatic equilibrium. In her left arm, she cradles a cornucopiae, overflowing with fruits and produce to represent agricultural fertility, material abundance, and economic security. In Roman public religion, Felicitas served as both an abstract virtue and an active deity associated with imperial fortune. For an unexpected emperor seeking to justify his rise to power, invoking Felicitas signaled that his elevation was divinely sanctioned and guaranteed peace for the Roman world. The caduceus held particular resonance in AD 217 and 218, as Macrinus prioritized peaceful negotiations and diplomatic treaties over protracted foreign military campaigns, framing the end of hostilities with Parthia and Armenia as the dawn of a prosperous new age.

Epigraphy and Legend Structure

The legends on RIC IV Macrinus 60b are executed in standard imperial epigraphic capitals. The obverse legend reads IMP C M OPEL SEV MACRINVS AVG, expanding the Latin phrase Imperator Caesar Marcus Opellius Severus Macrinus Augustus. The inclusion of the cognomen Severus represents a strategic political calculation; by adopting the dynastic name of Septimius Severus, Macrinus claimed continuity with the established Severan house, attempting to conciliate the legions that retained strong emotional loyalties to the lineage of Caracalla. The epigraphy is tightly formatted around the perimeter of the coin within an outer circle of dots. On the reverse, the legend reads FELICITAS TEMPORVM, translating as 'The Felicity of the Times' or 'Prosperity of the Season.' This formulaic motto was frequently employed by new emperors during periods of civic anxiety to reassure the populace of impending relief and moral stability. The layout of the reverse inscription symmetrically frames the standing deity, maintaining balanced visual proportions across the surface of the flan.

Typology and Chronological Classification

Within modern numismatic taxonomy, RIC IV Macrinus 60 is partitioned into distinct sub-varieties based upon the execution of the bust drapery and the development of the imperial portrait. Sub-type 60b specifically designates specimens displaying a laureate, long-bearded, cuirassed bust facing right, without additional paludamentum drapery, distinguishing it from 60a, which features a laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust, or earlier issues displaying a short beard. Because the transition to the elongated beard design occurred during the winter of AD 217 into early AD 218, the striking of 60b is securely placed within the latter half of Macrinus's rule. This sequence terminated abruptly in June AD 218 following the defeat of Macrinus's forces at Antioch by the partisans of Elagabalus. The chronological sequence developed by Harold Mattingly, Edward Sydenham, and expanded by Curtis Clay demonstrates that reverse types bearing undated slogans like FELICITAS TEMPORVM were struck concurrently with tribunician and consular issues, acting as thematic messaging alongside precisely dated imperial milestones.

Hoard Evidence and Monetary Circulation

Denarii of Macrinus, including the FELICITAS TEMPORVM type, circulated widely throughout the western and Danubian provinces of the Roman Empire, though their overall representation in hoards remains modest compared to the extensive coinages of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. The brevity of Macrinus's reign limited cumulative production volumes, yet hoard documentation from Britain, Gaul, the Rhine frontier, and the Balkans regularly features his Rome-mint denarii alongside late second and early third-century issues. Because Macrinus did not dramatically debase his denarii below Caracalla's standard, coins of type RIC IV 60b integrated smoothly into everyday commercial transactions without being immediately hoarded or culled by Gresham's Law. Following his overthrow and damnatio memoriae, his silver coinage was not systematically recalled or melted by Elagabalus, as the state could ill afford to withdraw millions of circulating denarii during active payments to the military. Consequently, specimens of RIC IV Macrinus 60b remained in general circulation well into the mid-third century, as evidenced by their presence in Severan-era and Gordianic hoards displaying gradual circulation wear.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. V: Pertinax to Elagabalus. pp. 498-503
2. The Chronology of the Reign of Macrinus (Numismatic Chronicle). pp. 21-40
3. The Mint of Rome under Macrinus. pp. 55-68
4. Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire. pp. 142-146
5. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC IV Macrinus 60b. ric.4.mcs.60b
6. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. IV, Part II: Macrinus to Pupienus. p. 11, no. 60b