Macrinus was the first emperor never to have served in the Senate — a Mauretanian-born equestrian who rose through legal and administrative ranks before commanding the Praetorian Guard. His reign lasted just fourteen months before Elagabalus's partisans had him executed near Antioch in June 218. Carrhae, site of Rome's catastrophic defeat of Crassus in 53 BC, retained symbolic weight for any emperor managing the eastern frontier, and Macrinus spent much of his brief reign negotiating an expensive and humiliating peace with Parthia rather than prosecuting Caracalla's unfinished war.
Prieur 828 is among the better-documented provincial issues of this reign from Mesopotamia.
Macrinus was the first emperor never to have served in the Senate — a Mauretanian-born equestrian who rose through legal and administrative ranks before commanding the Praetorian Guard. His reign lasted just fourteen months before Elagabalus's partisans had him executed near Antioch in June 218. Carrhae, site of Rome's catastrophic defeat of Crassus in 53 BC, retained symbolic weight for any emperor managing the eastern frontier, and Macrinus spent much of his brief reign negotiating an expensive and humiliating peace with Parthia rather than prosecuting Caracalla's unfinished war.
Prieur 828 is among the better-documented provincial issues of this reign from Mesopotamia.