Macrinus seized power in April 217 AD after orchestrating — or at minimum failing to prevent — the assassination of Caracalla on the road between Edessa and Carrhae. He was the first emperor who had never served in the Senate, a praetorian prefect elevated by the legions, and his reign lasted barely fourteen months before Philip's men killed him near Antioch. This coin was almost certainly struck there during that narrow window, at a mint that had been producing Severan bronze for decades and simply swapped dynastic allegiances.
The SC on provincial bronzes of Antioch remains a point of scholarly debate — its meaning in an eastern colonial context differs from its senatorial function on Roman struck coinage.
Macrinus seized power in April 217 AD after orchestrating — or at minimum failing to prevent — the assassination of Caracalla on the road between Edessa and Carrhae. He was the first emperor who had never served in the Senate, a praetorian prefect elevated by the legions, and his reign lasted barely fourteen months before Philip's men killed him near Antioch. This coin was almost certainly struck there during that narrow window, at a mint that had been producing Severan bronze for decades and simply swapped dynastic allegiances.
The SC on provincial bronzes of Antioch remains a point of scholarly debate — its meaning in an eastern colonial context differs from its senatorial function on Roman struck coinage.