# Macrinus
**Macrinus** (Marcus Opellius Macrinus; c. 164–166 – June 218) was a [Roman emperor](https://www.edgepedia.org/roman-emperor) who reigned from April 217 to June 218, and the first emperor who was neither a senator nor a member of a senatorial family at the time of his accession.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) A lawyer and career administrator from Caesarea in [Mauretania](https://www.edgepedia.org/mauretania) (modern Cherchell, Algeria), he rose through the equestrian order (Roman social rank below the senatorial class) to become praetorian prefect under [Caracalla](https://www.edgepedia.org/caracalla), was implicated in the emperor's assassination, and ruled for fourteen months entirely in the East before being overthrown by the supporters of Elagabalus.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name and reign | Imperator Caesar Marcus Opellius Severus Macrinus Augustus; emperor 11 April 217 – 8 June 218[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) |
| Origin | Born in Caesarea, Mauretania Caesariensis (Cherchell, Algeria); Dio gives 164, the Chronicon Paschale 166[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) |
| Social distinction | First emperor of equestrian, non-senatorial origin; never set foot in Rome as emperor[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [3](https://www.worldhistory.org/Macrinus/) |
| Path to power | Praetorian prefect under Caracalla; implicated in Caracalla's murder at Harran on 8 April 217[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) |
| Parthian settlement | Defeated near Nisibis by Artabanus IV; peace bought with an indemnity Dio puts at 200 million sesterces[4](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Macrinus%2A.html) |
| Downfall | Legio III Gallica proclaimed the 14-year-old Bassianus (Elagabalus) emperor on 16 May 218; Macrinus defeated near Antioch on 8 June 218[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) |
| End | Captured at Chalcedon and decapitated in Cappadocia; the Senate decreed a damnatio memoriae[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) |
## Early life and equestrian career
Macrinus was born in Caesarea, the capital of the province of Mauretania Caesariensis, into a family that the sources call poor but that must have belonged to the local elite, since his parents could give him a literary and legal education.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) His family belonged to the equestrian class, and [Cassius Dio](https://www.edgepedia.org/cassius-dio), who knew him personally, described the family as "obscure"; Dio also records that Macrinus had a pierced ear, a custom of his region.[5](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/macrinus-african-roman-emperor)
He became a lawyer and moved to Rome, where Dio judged that "his knowledge of the laws and precedents was not so accurate as his observance of them was faithful."[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) His reliability made him a useful ally of the powerful praetorian prefect Plautianus, and he held a series of procuratorships, including responsibility for the Flaminian Road and, in 208, the imperial purple wardrobe; he may have accompanied [Septimius Severus](https://www.edgepedia.org/septimius-severus) on the Scottish campaign.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) When Severus died in February 211, his sons Caracalla and Geta appointed Macrinus procurator rei privatae, manager of the imperial family's finances, making him one of the leading courtiers and a witness to the palace murder of Geta in December 211.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
**Praetorian prefect.** Shortly afterward Caracalla appointed Macrinus praetorian prefect, the highest office open to a non-senator, shared with the aged soldier Oclatinius Adventus.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) National Geographic dates the promotion to 212.[5](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/macrinus-african-roman-emperor) In this post Macrinus commanded the imperial guard, held juridical duties, sat on the emperor's advisory council, and commanded the Second Legion Parthica, the strategic reserve garrisoned at Alba near Rome.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) He accompanied Caracalla on the eastern expedition against Parthia from 216, and after the campaign's first season received the title vir clarissimus and the right to wear a consul's insignia.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
## Accession
By the winter of 216–217 rumors in Rome and the East held that Macrinus was promoting himself as a future emperor, and Cassius Dio notes that Caracalla had begun reassigning members of Macrinus' staff, moves that may have accelerated a plot.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) On 8 April 217, during a visit to the temple of the moon god Sin near Harran, Caracalla was assassinated by one of his bodyguards, Julius Martialis; the ancient sources agree that Macrinus was behind the attack, though this may be slander.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) The guards returned with a story that a dead bodyguard had killed the dead emperor, but Macrinus converted his authority as prefect into the purple and was proclaimed by the troops on 11 April 217.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm)
A modern study of the assassination accounts argues that the narratives of Cassius Dio and Herodian, the two contemporary historians, were hostile to Macrinus and likely developed by his successor [Elagabalus](https://www.edgepedia.org/elagabalus); Dio's version is colored by his view that Macrinus overstepped the bounds of his social station, while Herodian shaped his account into a tyrant-slaying narrative.[6](https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/dio-herodian-on-assassination-caracalla/docview/1319486648/se-2)
The Senate recognized the new emperor at once, enrolling him among the patricians and making him Pontifex Maximus with the surname Pius.[4](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Macrinus%2A.html) Macrinus named his nine- or ten-year-old son Diadumenianus Caesar and heir, sent Adventus back to Rome as urban prefect, and allowed Caracalla's mother Julia Domna to retire to Antioch, where she starved herself to death.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
## Reign
**Parthian war.** Macrinus opened his reign with conciliatory messages to the Parthian king [Artabanus IV](https://www.edgepedia.org/artabanus-iv), but Artabanus sensed weakness and raised an army to avenge the previous year's Roman campaign. Fighting erupted around Nisibis, and the sources present the outcome as a Roman defeat, though the generally hostile sources may exaggerate its decisiveness.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) According to Dio, Macrinus surrendered all prisoners and paid Artabanus presents amounting to 200 million sesterces.[4](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Macrinus%2A.html) Settlements were also reached with the [Armenians](https://www.edgepedia.org/armenians) and the Dacians, and the final Parthian treaty was signed in the winter of 217/218; Edessa and Armenia were brought more firmly into the Roman sphere at the price of the indemnity.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) The Senate offered the title Parthicus maximus, which Macrinus declined.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
**Finances and the army.** Macrinus revalued the denarius, restoring its silver content from the 1.45 grams of the previous two years to the Severan standard of 1.85 grams, and tried to curb expenses.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) Because Caracalla had raised the legionaries' pay, this retrenchment was difficult to sustain; Macrinus introduced an unpopular two-tier pay system in which new recruits received less than veterans, lowering morale among the eastern troops.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) The Spanish cultural thesaurus summarizes the same policy as favoring the municipal oligarchies at the army's expense, through tax reductions and inflation control.[7](https://tesauros.cultura.gob.es/tesauros/tesauros/alfabetico/m?termino=https%3A%2F%2Ftesauros.cultura.gob.es%2Ftesauros%2Fcontextosculturales%2F1005847&tesauro=https%3A%2F%2Ftesauros.cultura.gob.es%2Ftesauros%2Fcontextosculturales) His absence from Rome in 217 also drew criticism, especially after a violent thunderstorm in late August damaged much of the [Colosseum](https://www.edgepedia.org/colosseum) and flooded the Forum.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm)
## Downfall
The [Severan dynasty](https://www.edgepedia.org/severan-dynasty) had living claimants. Julia Domna's sister Julia Maesa promoted her fourteen-year-old grandson Varius Avitus Bassianus, a priest of the sun god Elagabal at Emesa who was popular with the eastern legions, with the story that he was Caracalla's natural son.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) • [8](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61673/chapter-abstract/549687950) On 16 May 218 the Third Legion Gallica at Raphanaea switched allegiance to the boy; Macrinus responded by promoting Diadumenianus to co-emperor (Augustus), but when he sent his prefect Ulpius Julianus south with the Second Legion Parthica, Julianus was lynched and the legionaries joined the rebellion.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
The armies met near Antioch on 8 June 218, and despite the inexperience of the rebel leaders Macrinus was defeated.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) He fled toward Rome disguised as a courier but was seized at Chalcedon in Bithynia and taken to [Cappadocia](https://www.edgepedia.org/cappadocia), where he was decapitated; Diadumenianus, captured at Zeugma while fleeing toward the [Euphrates](https://www.edgepedia.org/euphrates), was put to death as well.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en) The Senate pronounced a damnatio memoriae, and Bassianus reigned as Elagabalus.[2](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
## Sources and reputation
The main narrative sources are Cassius Dio's Roman History (book 78/79), Herodian's History of the Roman Empire (books 4–5), and the Historia Augusta's Life of Macrinus, which the Directory of Roman Emperors calls highly untrustworthy.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) Modern scholarship on the Historia Augusta holds that its lives mix genuine information with authorial invention, and that the life of Macrinus is a "secondary life" derived from the treatment of him as a usurper in the life of Elagabalus.[9](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/martial-and-the-historia-avgvsta/EEC2530FDF16332A48C6067608B80792) A review of Andrew G. Scott's commentary on Dio's books 79–80 notes that Dio's attribution of cowardice to Macrinus at Nisibis may be no more than ethnic stereotype against a Moor, with more favorable reports in Herodian and the Historia Augusta.[10](https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019.09.16)
Contemporaries tended to portray Macrinus as a fear-driven parvenu, an able administrator who lacked the aristocratic connections and personal bravado needed for legitimacy.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) His reign, though brief, marked a constitutional shift: the first occupation of the throne by a non-senator and a Mauretanian, and a brief interlude of Parthian success in the final decade of the Parthian empire.[1](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm) • [11](https://www.cuttersguide.com/pdf/Ancient-Civilization/Encyclopedia%20of%20Ancient%20Rome%20-%20Matthew%20Bunson.pdf)
## Macrinus in popular culture
[Ridley Scott](https://www.edgepedia.org/ridley-scott)'s film *Gladiator II* (2024) features a character named Macrinus, played by [Denzel Washington](https://www.edgepedia.org/denzel-washington), as a former slave turned gladiator-trader who schemes for the throne. The historical Macrinus did exist but raised no army of gladiators, and the film's plot about [Marcus Aurelius](https://www.edgepedia.org/marcus-aurelius)'s illegitimate grandson is invented; classicists Mary Beard and Andrew Scott, consulted in press coverage, note that some ancient sources do blame him for Caracalla's assassination while stressing how different the real career was.[12](https://time.com/7178738/gladiator-ii-denzel-washington-macrinus/)
## References
1. [Michael L. Meckler, "Macrinus (217–218 A.D.)", De Imperatoribus Romanis (DIR)](https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/macrinus.htm)
2. [Jona Lendering, "Macrinus", Livius.org](https://www.livius.org/articles/person/macrinus/?lang=en)
3. ["Macrinus", World History Encyclopedia](https://www.worldhistory.org/Macrinus/)
4. [Historia Augusta, "Life of Macrinus" (with Dio LXXVIII.26–27 note), trans. D. Magie, LacusCurtius](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Macrinus%2A.html)
5. [Parissa Djangi, "Who was the real Macrinus, Rome's North African emperor?", National Geographic (2024)](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/macrinus-african-roman-emperor)
6. [Andrew G. Scott, "Dio and Herodian on the Assassination of Caracalla" (2008)](https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/dio-herodian-on-assassination-caracalla/docview/1319486648/se-2)
7. ["Macrino, Emperador de Roma", Tesauros del Patrimonio Cultural de España](https://tesauros.cultura.gob.es/tesauros/tesauros/alfabetico/m?termino=https%3A%2F%2Ftesauros.cultura.gob.es%2Ftesauros%2Fcontextosculturales%2F1005847&tesauro=https%3A%2F%2Ftesauros.cultura.gob.es%2Ftesauros%2Fcontextosculturales)
8. [Opellius Macrinus, Marcus | Oxford Classical Dictionary | Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61673/chapter-abstract/549687950)
9. [David Rohrbacher, "Martial and the Historia Avgvsta", Classical Quarterly (2020)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/martial-and-the-historia-avgvsta/EEC2530FDF16332A48C6067608B80792)
10. [Review of Scott, Emperors and Usurpers: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 79(78)–80(80), BMCR 2019.09.16](https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019.09.16)
11. [Matthew Bunson, Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire](https://www.cuttersguide.com/pdf/Ancient-Civilization/Encyclopedia%20of%20Ancient%20Rome%20-%20Matthew%20Bunson.pdf)
12. ["What to Know About Denzel Washington's Gladiator II Character", TIME (2024)](https://time.com/7178738/gladiator-ii-denzel-washington-macrinus/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › European history › Western Europe › Ancient Rome › Roman emperors and dynasties*
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