Watch List notes:

JDL Collection Part II: Roman Coins
THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

CLODIUS ALBINUS CAESAR, shortly after April 9, 193–end 195/beginning 196.

Sestertius, Rome 194, Æ 24.10 g.
Obv. D CLOD ℵ? SEPT - ALBIN CAES Bare bust of Albinus right, paludamentum on left shoulder; border of dots.
Rev. FELI-CI-T-AS COS II / S - C Felicitas standing facing, head left, holding caduceus in right hand and leaning left hand on long sceptre; border of dots.
Literature
Cohen - cf. 16 (paludamentum missing) BMC RE V, 132, 530
RIC IV/1, 52, 52b
Banti - cf. 7 (legend differently subdivided on reverse)
M.-M. Bendenoun, Coins of the Ancient World, A portrait of the JDL Collection, Tradart, Genève, 2009, 74 (this coin)
Condition
A lovely portrait and with a fine brown tone. Minor areas of weakness, otherwise about extremely fine / good very fine.

Provenance
Frank Sternberg AG VIII, Zürich 1978, lot 559
The life of Clodius Albinus, like that of many later emperors who reigned briefly, is difficult to reconstruct. Primary sources for him are scant, with Herodian being the only one that we may consider to be of real value. The works of Aurelius Victor and Eutropius offer only the briefest of accounts, and the more detailed version of the Historia Augusta is so flawed as to be virtually a work of fiction. Aurelius Victor, Eutropius and the HA all suggest Albinus was the principal ally of Didius Julianus in
the murder of Pertinax. This bit of misinformation must have been present in the lost Kaisergeschichte, and it very likely originated as Severan propaganda by which Septimius Severus would have defended his later actions against Albinus.
The origin of the epithet Albinus is described in the HA as having been given to him on the day of his birth, for when he emerged from his mother's womb Albinus was "very white" rather than possessing the usual reddish coloration. His father, in what certainly is a fictional letter, is said to have written: "A son was born to me on the seventh day before the Kalends of December, his whole body being straightaway of such white- ness as to outdo the cloth in which he was wrapped." In a later passage of the HA, the author notes that the extreme white- ness of his complexion persisted into his later years: "He was remarkably white, so much so that many think he got his name from that."
Curiosities aside, Albinus was a highly successful man and must have been a capable general. The HA describes him as being an expert in arms who was rightly described as "the Catiline of his age." Even if he had possessed these extraordinary military talents, Albinus was no match for Severus, who bested him ini- tially by reaching Rome first, and then by placating him with the empty title of Caesar, by which Severus bought time to defeat Pescennius Niger in the East. When upon returning to Rome Severus turned his aggressions toward Albinus, it could hardly have come as a surprise. Albinus was then hailed emperor by his men and on February 19 of 197 the armies of the rival Augusti clashed near Lugdunum in one of the largest battles
in Roman history. On that day Albinus perished and Severus definitively secured the empire for himself.