MACRINUS

The Greatest Algerian of All Times, Algerian Roman Emperor Marcus Opellius Macrinus He was born in or around 165 CE, at Caesarea, the capital of the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. Caesarea, modernly known as Cherchell in Algeria, was a bustling port city. Macrinus' family, while Equestrians and therefore probably not especially poor, do not seem to have been part of even a local nobility. The nomen Opellius is rare but undistinguished, while Macrinus (also spelled Macrinius) was an extremely commoncognomen in the 2nd Century CE. Our contemporary sources are eager to stress that Macrinus was not a descendant of Italian migrants - he was a Romanized Mauretanian, an thus regarded as an unrefined provincial. Macrinus' life before the reign of Septimius Severus is shrouded in mystery. The Historia Augusta would have us believe that he had found work as a hunter, gladiator, and a courier during his youth. It does seem clear that, probably during the reign of Commodus, Macrinus had received a literary education. By the middle years of Severus' reign (193-211), Macrinus was established in Rome as a lawyer of some skill. It is known that Macrinus was married; the Historia Augusta gives his wife's name as Nonia Celsa, but she is not mentioned in any of our more reliable sources on his life. His marriage produced at least one child, a son named Diadumenianus who was born in or around 208, when his father was already advanced in age. Macrinus himself is depicted as a man with long and heavy features, thick brows, and a philosopher's beard in his busts and many of his coin portraits. Cassius Dio tells us that his left ear was pierced, and claims that this was a national custom of the Mauretanians. We are left with conflicting accounts of his character. The Historia Augusta (as always, to be taken with a grain of salt) depicts him as a harsh and brutal driver of soldiers and slaves, while Dio saw him as a tactful legal expert and a prolific writer of letters, whose