Caracalla — Denarius, VOTA SVSCEPTA X, Rome

Struck at Rome, c. AD 206–210, when Caracalla was the young co-Augustus at his father Septimius Severus' side. He had been raised to the rank of Augustus in AD 198 as a boy of ten; this denarius, with its youthful laureate portrait, belongs to the vows marking the approach of his tenth year in that office.

VOTA SVSCEPTA X — "vows undertaken for the tenth year." The reverse shows Caracalla himself in priestly dress, veiled and togate, sacrificing from a patera over a lit tripod with a scroll in his left hand. The type casts the young emperor in the role of pontifex, publicly discharging the religious vows made for the decennalia of his reign.

Attribution: RIC IV Caracalla 179

Mint: Rome

Weight: 2.96 g

Diameter: 20 mm

Catalogued in the NumisLens cabinet — NL-CS7YV-6AKPT