Æ29 - Macrinus ΝΙΚΑΙΕΩΝ

Macrinus reigned barely fourteen months — from April 217 to June 218 AD — making any provincial bronze struck in his name inherently rare by circumstance rather than design. He was the first emperor never to have served in the Senate, a praetorian prefect who arranged the assassination of Caracalla and then found himself unable to control either the legions or the frontier. The eastern provinces, Nicaea among them, had just enough time to produce civic bronzes before his defeat at the Battle of Antioch.

Nicaea was then one of the two dominant cities of Bithynia, in perpetual rivalry with Nicomedia over which held the true provincial primacy.