Mint and Date: Rome, 199-210 CE
Size and Weight: 18mm, 3.2g
Obverse: Laureate, draped bust right, seen from behind.
ANTONINVS AVGVSTVS
Reverse: Caracalla (as Alexander the Great?), naked except for cloak falling over left shoulder, standing facing, head left, globe held at chest height in right hand, sword sheathed at left hip, reversed spear in left hand.
RECTORI ORBIS
Provenance: callisto2uk (eBay), March 2006
Ref: RCV (2002) 6881; RIC 40; BMCRE p186, 167-168.
BW Ref: 017 024 083
Note: RIC IV describes this reverse figure as Sol, and the BMCRE says "Caracalla (as Sol), radiate," but the examples I can find, including the BMCRE plate coin, do not support this description. The figure is laureate, not radiate. It was suggested by Curtis Clay that it might represent Caracalla as Alexander the Great; following the capture of Ctesiphon two years earlier by Caracalla and his father Septimius Severus, he could represent himself as the conqueror of the East.