The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Roman Style

While comparing the eagles on the reverses of the Caracalla and Elagabalus tetradrachms, I realised that I didn't have a decent coin of their namesake Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, emperor from 161 to 180 AD. As luck would have it, this one came along. Though the reference is RIC III 1133, it is unusual as the bust is not cuirassed.

Marcus Aurelius Dupondius. Rome, Struck 174-175 AD.
Obverse: Radiate bust to right, slight drapery on far shoulder. Obverse Inscription: M ANTONINVS AVG TR P XXIX. Reverse: Annona standing to left, holding corn ears over modius at feet and cornucopiae; S-C across fields. Reverse Inscription: IMP VII COS III. Bronze. Diameter: 26 mm. Weight: 11.58 gr.
Reference: RIC III 1133 var. (bust type); BMCRE 1492 var. (bust type).
The obverse inscription translates as: Marcus Antoninus Augustus, Tribunicia Potestate Nona Vicesima. (Marcus [Aurelius] Antoninus Emperor (Augustus), holder of tribunician power for the 29th time.)

Examples:
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=9705350
and
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=4620475

For comparison, a more usual cuirassed bust type from the British Museum is shown below.

The original Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is remembered as a philosopher and the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors. He was also the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability that lasted from 27 BC till his death at the age of 58 of unknown causes on 17 March 180 AD. The following two emperors are not remembered so favourably.

Born on 4 April 188 to Emperor Septimius Severus and Empress Julia Domna, Lucius Septimius Bassianus was renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus at the age of seven as part of his father's attempt at union with the families of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. As a member of the Severan dynasty he was emperor from 198 to 217 AD. Known as Caracalla due to the type of cloak that he wore, his reign featured domestic instability and external invasions by the Germanic peoples. He is probably remembered mostly for the construction of the Baths of Caracalla, which became the second largest baths in Rome; for the introduction of a new Roman currency named the antoninianus, a sort of double denarius; for the massacres he ordered, both in Rome and elsewhere in the empire; and as a tyrant and cruel leader. Caracalla met his end while travelling to visit a temple near Carrhae on 8 April 217, being stabbed to death by a soldier, Justin Martialis, who was incensed by Caracalla's refusal to grant him the position of centurion.

Born to Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana in (probably) 203 AD, (Sextus) Varius Avitus Bassianus, on being declared emperor on 16 May 218 by Publius Valerius Comazon, commander of the legion, adopted the same name Caracalla bore as emperor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Known as Elagabalus, his short reign was mired in sex scandals and religious controversy. Instating Elagabal as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon, so that a foreign god would be honored above Jupiter with Elagabalus himself as chief priest, shocked many Romans. He inflamed matters further by marrying the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa, Vesta's high priestess, claiming that this would produce "godlike children". It was a flagrant breach of Roman law, which held that any Vestal found to have engaged in sexual intercourse was to be buried alive. Furthermore Dio states that Elagabalus wanted to marry a charioteer named Hierocles and to declare him caesar, just as (Dio says) he had previously wanted to marry Gannys and name him caesar. The athlete Aurelius Zoticus is said by Dio to have been Elagabalus's lover and cubicularius (a non-administrative role), while the Augustan History says Zoticus was a husband to Elagabalus and held greater political influence. On the 11 or 12 March 222 Elagabalus was killed by the Praetorian Guard, decapitated, his naked body dragged through the streets and thrown into the Tiber.