Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXIII 24-25 Mar 2022
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Caracalla AV Aureus. Rome, AD 213. ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT, laureate and cuirassed bust to right / P M TR P XVI IMP II, Caracalla, laureate and draped, riding in triumphal quadriga to right, holding reins and eagle-tipped sceptre; COS IIII P P in exergue. RIC IV -, cf. 210 corr. (rev. legend); C. 232 var. (placement of rev. legend); BMCRE 55, pl. 68, 18 var. (placement of rev. legend; same obv. die); Calicó 2712a (same dies) = Athena Münzen der Antike GmbH, Auction 1, 8 October 1987, lot 247 (same dies); Lanz 97, 22 May 2000, lot 744 (Dr. H. Winz Coll.; same dies) = Triton VI, 14 January 2003, lot 1016 (M. Melcher Coll.; same dies). 7.43g, 20mm, 12h.
Previously ANACS graded AU 50 (#6120680). Excellent detail, and lustrous metal. An extremely rare variant with the reverse legend partially in the exergue, and possibly only the third known example after the 1987 Athena and 2003 CNG (Melcher and Winz Collections) examples.
Ex Stack's Bowers Galleries, Collector's Choice Auction, 20 October 2020, lot 71053.
This remarkably rare issue was struck at some point during AD 213, during which year Cassius Dio relates that Caracalla had departed Rome in order to suppress an alliance of Germanic tribes who had broken through the Limes Germanicus into the province of Raetia (Roman History, LXXVIII.13). Broadly referred to as the 'Alemanni' by the contemporary writer Herodian (History of the Empire IV.7), this confederation was to become an especially implacable enemy of future Roman emperors such as Aurelian.
Dio describes, in some detail, the causes of the conflict. A vocal detractor of Caracalla's arbitrary operations and bent morality in his Roman History, Dio states that the emperor had ignored Alemmanic pleas for aid over a tribal conflict, and resolved instead to publically execute their leaders (ibid.). It was these slayings, according to the historian, that had incited the initial surge across the Limes. In retaliation, Caracalla quickly mobilised the famed Legio II Traiana Fortis, renowned for their campaigns in Parthia, Egypt and Syria during the reign of Trajan, who crushed the marauders with ease. This prompted Dio to reflect that the whole debacle was likely devised by Caracalla as a guaranteed way of acquiring military prestige; a notion sustained by the modern historian John F. Drinkwater, who asserts that the Alamanni were yet to develop into a potent force by 213, rendering them somewhat easy pickings for the emperor (The Alamanni and Rome 213-496: Caracalla to Clovis p. 43-44).
One must deduce from its dating that the present specimen was struck to commemorate Caracalla's Germanic victories either during or directly after the campaign (a theory supported by Mattingly, RIC IV, p. 86). The obverse legend, ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT, indicates that it was minted before he was granted (or self-granted) the cognomen Germanicus Maximus, which first began to appear in the form ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM on his coinage the following year (see, for instance, RIC IV 316). The detailed reverse is characteristically braggadocious; it displays Caracalla riding in a quadriga and holding an eagle-tipped sceptre aloft in a triumphal fashion.
Assessing the situation in 213, Caracalla might have thought his reign was progressing satisfactorily. He had cemented the support of the legions by quadrupling their rate of pay to four denarii per day and had in the previous year finally eliminated his brother and rival, Geta, along with 20,000 of his 'sympathisers', according to modern estimates (see Varner, Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, p. 168). His introduction of unprecedentedly high tax rates, consistent confiscation of Roman estates and deplorable character however meant that he remained a loathed figure, unpopular among the aristocracy and masses alike. Unsurprisingly, then, multiple attempts were made against his life before he succumbed to a plot instigated in 217 by the praetorian prefect Macrinus; his successor and the first emperor to hail from the equestrian class.
Previously ANACS graded AU 50 (#6120680). Excellent detail, and lustrous metal. An extremely rare variant with the reverse legend partially in the exergue, and possibly only the third known example after the 1987 Athena and 2003 CNG (Melcher and Winz Collections) examples.
Ex Stack's Bowers Galleries, Collector's Choice Auction, 20 October 2020, lot 71053.
This remarkably rare issue was struck at some point during AD 213, during which year Cassius Dio relates that Caracalla had departed Rome in order to suppress an alliance of Germanic tribes who had broken through the Limes Germanicus into the province of Raetia (Roman History, LXXVIII.13). Broadly referred to as the 'Alemanni' by the contemporary writer Herodian (History of the Empire IV.7), this confederation was to become an especially implacable enemy of future Roman emperors such as Aurelian.
Dio describes, in some detail, the causes of the conflict. A vocal detractor of Caracalla's arbitrary operations and bent morality in his Roman History, Dio states that the emperor had ignored Alemmanic pleas for aid over a tribal conflict, and resolved instead to publically execute their leaders (ibid.). It was these slayings, according to the historian, that had incited the initial surge across the Limes. In retaliation, Caracalla quickly mobilised the famed Legio II Traiana Fortis, renowned for their campaigns in Parthia, Egypt and Syria during the reign of Trajan, who crushed the marauders with ease. This prompted Dio to reflect that the whole debacle was likely devised by Caracalla as a guaranteed way of acquiring military prestige; a notion sustained by the modern historian John F. Drinkwater, who asserts that the Alamanni were yet to develop into a potent force by 213, rendering them somewhat easy pickings for the emperor (The Alamanni and Rome 213-496: Caracalla to Clovis p. 43-44).
One must deduce from its dating that the present specimen was struck to commemorate Caracalla's Germanic victories either during or directly after the campaign (a theory supported by Mattingly, RIC IV, p. 86). The obverse legend, ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT, indicates that it was minted before he was granted (or self-granted) the cognomen Germanicus Maximus, which first began to appear in the form ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM on his coinage the following year (see, for instance, RIC IV 316). The detailed reverse is characteristically braggadocious; it displays Caracalla riding in a quadriga and holding an eagle-tipped sceptre aloft in a triumphal fashion.
Assessing the situation in 213, Caracalla might have thought his reign was progressing satisfactorily. He had cemented the support of the legions by quadrupling their rate of pay to four denarii per day and had in the previous year finally eliminated his brother and rival, Geta, along with 20,000 of his 'sympathisers', according to modern estimates (see Varner, Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, p. 168). His introduction of unprecedentedly high tax rates, consistent confiscation of Roman estates and deplorable character however meant that he remained a loathed figure, unpopular among the aristocracy and masses alike. Unsurprisingly, then, multiple attempts were made against his life before he succumbed to a plot instigated in 217 by the praetorian prefect Macrinus; his successor and the first emperor to hail from the equestrian class.