The Emperor's Departure

PROFECTIO AVG caught my attention on this coin: RIC IV Caracalla 225. At 4.05g it is also a nice heavyweight denarius with relatively sharp images, apart from weak letters in the reverse legend.

The coin

Roman Imperial, Italy, Rome, Caracalla (Augustus, AD 198 to 217), AR Denarius (4.05g, 21mm), probably struck early in AD 213. Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT, laureate, bearded head of Caracalla right. Rev: PROFECTIO AVG, Caracalla in military dress standing right, holding a transverse spear in both hands; two standards behind. Ref: RIC IV Caracalla 225.

The legend and the type

The legend PROFECTIO AVG is short for Profectio Augusti, Latin for “the departure of the emperor.” The Rome mint struck coins with this legend to mark an emperor leaving the city to lead a major military campaign. The reverse image supports this reading: Caracalla, in military dress and holding a spear, stands before two standards.

The BRIT title

BRIT in the obverse legend abbreviates Britannicus, a victory title meaning “conqueror of the Britons.” Septimius Severus brought both his sons, Caracalla and Geta, to Britain in 208 to campaign against the Caledonian tribes north of Hadrian’s Wall. In the standard chronology, Severus and Caracalla took the title Britannicus in 210, and Geta received it after his own elevation to Augustus. Severus died at Eboracum (modern York) on 4 February 211, and his sons gave up the campaign and returned to Rome.

The title gives the coin its earliest possible date: a denarius reading ANTONINVS PIVS AVG BRIT cannot be earlier than 210. Caracalla kept the title for the rest of his reign. In 213 the Arval Brethren, a college of twelve aristocratic Roman priests who offered vows for the emperor’s welfare and inscribed the dated minutes of their meetings on marble, hailed him as “Brit(annice) max(ime),” greatest conqueror of the Britons (CIL VI 2086).

Dating the issue

OCRE dates the type from 210, when the BRIT title begins, to 213. In Karl Pink’s arrangement of the Rome mint’s issues, the PROFECTIO AVG coins belong to the first emission of 213, which places them at Caracalla’s departure for the northern frontier. 213 is the usual date for that departure. Michael Speidel reads the military diplomas, bronze discharge certificates that record the emperor’s titles and whereabouts, as evidence that Caracalla had already left Rome by late August 212, so the year is still debated.

Herodian on the departure

Herodian, a historian of the early third century who wrote in Greek, records (4.6) that Caracalla systematically murdered Geta’s associates, prominent senators, members of the extended imperial family, provincial governors, Vestal Virgins, and ordinary spectators at the chariot races. He then writes:

“After committing such crimes as these, hounded by his conscience and finding life in Rome intolerable, the emperor decided to leave the city to see to matters in the garrison camps and visit the provinces.” Herodian, History of the Roman Empire 4.7.1, trans. Edward C. Echols

The campaign against the Alamanni

In the next section (4.7.2), Herodian says the emperor went to the Danube to deal with the northern frontier. He does not name the enemy. Cassius Dio, a senator who lived through the reign, does: he records a campaign against the Alamanni (78.13.4), a confederation of Germanic tribes living around the Main River.

The Arval Brethren’s record

A record made at the time fixes the date and the route. The Arval Brethren’s minutes for 11 August 213 read:

“On 11 August, on the Capitol before the shrine of Juno Regina, the Arval Brethren met because our lord, the most holy emperor Pius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, pontifex maximus, is about to enter the land of the barbarians through the Raetian frontier to root out the enemy (per limitem Raetiae ad hostes extirpandos), so that the undertaking may turn out prosperously and happily for him.” Acta Fratrum Arvalium for AD 213, entry for 11 August, CIL VI 2086 (author’s translation)

Raetia was the province covering roughly modern Bavaria and eastern Switzerland. On 6 October 213 the same college recorded sacrifices for a German victory.

Caracalla’s last years

Caracalla probably never saw Rome again. After the northern campaign he moved east. By 1 January 214 the Arval Brethren were giving thanks that he had entered winter quarters at Nicomedia (modern İzmit, Turkey), “ad hiberna Nicomediae ingressus sit” (CIL VI 2103). From there he prepared a new war against the Parthian Empire. On 8 April 217 he was killed on the road from Edessa to Carrhae, in Osrhoene in northern Mesopotamia (Cassius Dio 79.5).

References

• Herodian, History of the Roman Empire 3.14 to 3.15 and 4.6 to 4.7, trans. Edward C. Echols (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961). Livius

• Cassius Dio, Roman History 77 (British campaign), 78.13.4 and 79.5, trans. Earnest Cary (Loeb Classical Library, 1927). LacusCurtius: 78.13.4; 79.5

• Acta Fratrum Arvalium for AD 213, entry for 11 August (III Id. Aug.), CIL VI 2086 = CIL VI 32380 = ILS 451 = Scheid, Commentarii fratrum Arvalium qui supersunt (Rome, 1998), no. 99a, p. 284, line 17. Online: EDCS-18900585, Inscription 2.

• Acta Fratrum Arvalium for AD 214, CIL VI 2103 = Scheid, Commentarii, no. 99b = AE 1994, 108 = ZPE 103 (1994), p. 188. Online: EDCS-19000363, Inscription 1.

• Pink, Karl. “Der Aufbau der römischen Münzprägung in der Kaiserzeit (2): Von Caracallas Regierungsantritt bis zum Tode Elagabals.” Numismatische Zeitschrift 67 (N.F. 27), 1934, pp. 3 to 17, at p. 6.

• Speidel, Michael A. “Caracalla’s journeys through the Balkans in 213 and 214.” Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi 40 (2023), pp. 87 to 96. doi:10.26650/gaad.2023007