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  [Image]                              Item Sold At Auction #13
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                  Web Product ID: 2763
                  Estimate: $300.00
                  Final Sale Price: $1,815.00
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                  Denomination: Sestertius
                  Grade: Good Fine glossy dark green patina
                  Reference: RIC IV 384; Cohen 458




  Severus Alexander, as Caesar. 221-222 AD. Æ Sestertius (18.80 gm). M AVREL ALEXANDER
  CAES, bare-headed and draped bust right / PON-TIFEX C-OS, S C in exergue, Severus
  Alexander, holding eagle-tipped sceptre and olive-branch, in slow quadriga walking
  right. RIC IV 384; Cohen 458. Good Fine, glossy dark green patina, porous. Very rare!
  Estimate $300.



  The first "Female Caesar," Julia Maesa cooked up the plot that returned the Severan
  dynasty to power and ran the affairs of Rome for nearly a decade with remarkable
  skill. Unlike earlier empresses, she wielded power directly, using her grandsons as
  mere figureheads. The first, the 13-year-old Varius Avitus, a priest and exotic
  dancer in the cult of Elagabal as well as emperor, she tried with diminishing success
  to rein in his excesses which had alienated the Roman populace. When his position
  became insupportable, Maesa coldly engineered his assassination and replacement by
  her other, more docile grandson, Severus Alexander. This very rare coin was issued
  during the short time that Alexander was Caesar under his cousin.