297, Lot: 476. Estimate $100. Sold for $65. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

temp. Maximinus II. AD 310-313. Æ (16mm, 1.64 g, 12h). ‘Persecution’ issue. Antioch mint, 2nd officina. Tyche seated facing on rocks; river-god Orontes swimming below / Apollo standing left, holding patera and lyre; B//SMA. Van Heesch, Last 3a; McAlee 170b; Vagi 2954; Failmezger 229. VF, dark green patina, earthen deposits.

J. van Heesch has provided the latest chronology for these anonymous civic bronzes of the fourth century AD. An active campaign of persecution against local Christians, abetted by Maximinus II, reached its height in Nicomedia, Antioch, and Alexandria. Churches were closed and property was seized from Christians who were expelled from many cities. These three major mint cities struck a series of small bronzes honoring the old Greco-Roman gods – Jupiter, Apollo, Tyche, and Serapis being among them. The persecutions subsided in AD 313, possibly as a result of concerns expressed by Constantine and Licinius, the emperors in the west.