Macrinus reigned just over fourteen months — the first emperor never to have served in the Senate, elevated directly from the praetorian prefecture after orchestrating, or at minimum enabling, the assassination of Caracalla in April 217. Tarsus, as the metropolis of Cilicia, had the civic standing to issue silver in his name, and the brevity of the reign makes any Macrinan provincial silver inherently scarce. The Prieur 809 attribution places this among a small, well-documented group of Tarsian didrachms from this window.
Macrinus reigned just over fourteen months — the first emperor never to have served in the Senate, elevated directly from the praetorian prefecture after orchestrating, or at minimum enabling, the assassination of Caracalla in April 217. Tarsus, as the metropolis of Cilicia, had the civic standing to issue silver in his name, and the brevity of the reign makes any Macrinan provincial silver inherently scarce. The Prieur 809 attribution places this among a small, well-documented group of Tarsian didrachms from this window.