Numismatica Ars Classica
Auction 131 30 May 2022
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Caracalla augustus, 198 – 217
Aureus 204, AV 7.37 g. ANTONINVS – PIVS AVG Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust r. Rev. PONTIF TR P VII – COS Caracalla, draped, standing l. in triumphal quadriga, extending r. hand and holding eagle-tipped sceptre in l. hand. C 418 var. (branch on reverse). BMC 468. RIC 77. Calicó 2776. Faces of Power 424 (this coin).
Extremely rare. A very elegant portrait and an interesting and finely executed
reverse composition. Perfectly struck and centred on a full flan.
Virtually as struck and almost Fdc
Ex Naville VIII, 1924, Bement, 1211 and Christie's 9th October 1984, 104. From the Karnak Hoard of 1901 and the collection of Victor Adda.
On 28 January 198 AD, the nine-year-old Caracalla was appointed co-Augustus to rule alongside his father, Septimius Severus. His given name had been L. Septimius Bassianus, but upon his father's seizure of power he was renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, as on the present aureus, to establish a false link to the legitimacy of the defunct Antonine dynasty. He was nicknamed Caracalla by the soldiers due to a hooded Gallic cloak that he habitually wore. The reverse type depicts Caracalla driving a quadriga, wearing the cloak and holding the winged eagle sceptre as emblems of a triumphing general. It celebrates his involvement in the triumph of Septimius Severus over the Parthian Empire that took place in the same year as Caracalla's elevation to the rank of Augustus. Despite the fact that the event immortalized on the coin took place more than half a decade earlier, the Parthian triumph was frequently invoked on Severan coinage and was made current again by the completion of the Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus in 203. It is somewhat ironic that Caracalla appears on the reverse of this coin triumphing over the Parthians in a war that was really fought by his father in 195-197. When Caracalla later embarked on his own Parthian campaign in 216-217, it ended in anything but triumph. Although he claimed his own victory and assumed the title of Parthicus Maximus, in April 217 he was struck down by a disgruntled soldier while urinating by the roadside. With the loss of its commander, the army could not stand up to the returning Parthian forces. The new emperor, Macrinus, was forced to pay an estimated 50 million denarii in return for permitting the army to withdraw from Parthian territory.
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Aureus 204, AV 7.37 g. ANTONINVS – PIVS AVG Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust r. Rev. PONTIF TR P VII – COS Caracalla, draped, standing l. in triumphal quadriga, extending r. hand and holding eagle-tipped sceptre in l. hand. C 418 var. (branch on reverse). BMC 468. RIC 77. Calicó 2776. Faces of Power 424 (this coin).
Extremely rare. A very elegant portrait and an interesting and finely executed
reverse composition. Perfectly struck and centred on a full flan.
Virtually as struck and almost Fdc
Ex Naville VIII, 1924, Bement, 1211 and Christie's 9th October 1984, 104. From the Karnak Hoard of 1901 and the collection of Victor Adda.
On 28 January 198 AD, the nine-year-old Caracalla was appointed co-Augustus to rule alongside his father, Septimius Severus. His given name had been L. Septimius Bassianus, but upon his father's seizure of power he was renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, as on the present aureus, to establish a false link to the legitimacy of the defunct Antonine dynasty. He was nicknamed Caracalla by the soldiers due to a hooded Gallic cloak that he habitually wore. The reverse type depicts Caracalla driving a quadriga, wearing the cloak and holding the winged eagle sceptre as emblems of a triumphing general. It celebrates his involvement in the triumph of Septimius Severus over the Parthian Empire that took place in the same year as Caracalla's elevation to the rank of Augustus. Despite the fact that the event immortalized on the coin took place more than half a decade earlier, the Parthian triumph was frequently invoked on Severan coinage and was made current again by the completion of the Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus in 203. It is somewhat ironic that Caracalla appears on the reverse of this coin triumphing over the Parthians in a war that was really fought by his father in 195-197. When Caracalla later embarked on his own Parthian campaign in 216-217, it ended in anything but triumph. Although he claimed his own victory and assumed the title of Parthicus Maximus, in April 217 he was struck down by a disgruntled soldier while urinating by the roadside. With the loss of its commander, the army could not stand up to the returning Parthian forces. The new emperor, Macrinus, was forced to pay an estimated 50 million denarii in return for permitting the army to withdraw from Parthian territory.
View a video of this lot