204 AD. Rome mint. Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG legend with laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right. Rev: INDVLGENTIA AVGG legend with Dea Caelestis holding thunderbolt and sceptre, seated right on lion leaping right over water gushing over rock on left; IN CARTH in exergue. RIC 130a; RSC 97; Sear 6806.2.81 grams. ("). From the private collection of a retired Suffolk gentleman. Sear explains that 'This type records some special mark of favour shown by the emperors to Carthage....It might be connected to the city's water supply (perhaps a new aqueduct)...' Dea Caelestis was the principal female deity of Carthage in Roman times, known also as the Celestial Goddess. Caracalla's most notable act was to grant citizenship to almost all free inhabitants of the Empire under the terms of the Constitutio Antoniniana. The emperor also oversaw important numismatic innovations. After the death of his father, Septimius Severus, Caracalla returned to Rome with his brother Geta, where they both resided at their imperial palace. However, the brothers had a history of mutual loathing and Caracalla used this opportunity to rid himself of Geta, who he invited to a 'reconciliatory meeting' in their mother's apartments, where Geta was killed on Caracalla’s orders, taking his dying breaths in the arms of his mother, Julia Domna. Thousands of Geta’s supporters were also executed. Later, Caracalla was himself murdered by his own soldiers when ‘relieving’ himself behind a bush whilst travelling through Greece. [No Reserve]