AR26 - Macrinus ΔΗΜΑΡΧ ΕΞ ΥΠΑΤΟϹ

Macrinus ruled for just fourteen months before being overthrown by the forces backing the teenage Elagabalus in June 218 AD, making any coin struck in his name from a provincial mint a product of an exceptionally compressed window. Edessa, the capital of Osrhoene, held a complicated relationship with Rome — nominally a client kingdom until Caracalla absorbed it outright in 214 AD, the city's mint continued producing Greek-legend bronzes and billon issues under Roman imperial authority.

The ΔΗΜΑΡΧ ΕΞ ΥΠΑΤΟϹ legend references tribunician power and the consulship, titulature Macrinus adopted rapidly to legitimize a reign that began with his own soldiers murdering Caracalla on a road near Carrhae — not far from Edessa itself.