Æ35 - Macrinus ΕΦΕϹΙΩΝ ΜΟΝΩΝ ΠΡΩΤΩΝ ΑϹΙΑϹ

Macrinus reigned just fourteen months — one of the shortest imperial tenures of the third century — after orchestrating the assassination of Caracalla in April 217. The Ephesian mint's insistence on its full civic title, ΕΦΕϹΙΩΝ ΜΟΝΩΝ ΠΡΩΤΩΝ ΑϹΙΑϹ, was no idle boast: the claim to be "first and alone" of Asia was a fiercely contested honorific, disputed with Smyrna and Pergamon across decades of petitions to Rome. Ephesus had won imperial confirmation of the title under Caracalla, and the mint wasted no time placing it prominently under his murderer's portrait.