Search in eAuction


CNG Bidding Platform

Information

Products and Services


Use Old Home Page

eAuction
Electronic Auction 501

Lot nuber 371

Diocletian. As Senior Augustus, AD 305-311/2. Æ Follis (28mm, 6.88 g, 6h). Abdication issue. Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. 1st emission, end January-early June AD 308.


Electronic Auction 501
Lot: 371.
 Estimated: $ 300

Roman Imperial, Bronze

Sold For $ 1 600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Go to Live

Diocletian. As Senior Augustus, AD 305-311/2. Æ Follis (28mm, 6.88 g, 6h). Abdication issue. Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. 1st emission, end January-early June AD 308. D N DIOCLETIANO AETER AVG, laureate bust right, wearing imperial mantle, holding branch and mappa / GENIO POP ROM, Genius standing left, holding patera and cornucopia; lighted altar to left; PLG. RIC VI 258; Lyon 466; CNG 84, lot 1408 (hammer $700). Silvering toned dark gray. VF. Extremely rare, only the Montbouy (Loiret) Hoard coin, no. 282 (same obv. die), cited by both RIC and Lyon.

In ANS Museum Notes VII, p. 70, C. H. V. Sutherland wrote: “Perpetuitas was the quality of what remained unchanged, emperor by emperor, colleague by colleague, reign by reign; and thus the securitas of the Tetrarchy could remain unbroken even though the partnership varied. But aeternitas was supramundane–the unbreakable quality of what could never end. Constantius by now was divus, and as such imperishable. Diocletian, however, the founder of the whole semi-divine system, still lived. His influence was so great that, living or dead, he would be felt as an eternal power, the source of harmony and happiness in endless future ages just as on the Arch of Salonika the eternal harmony of the universe was the outer setting for the central scene. It is true that Diocletian had abdicated; and ‘a god does not abdicate’. But a divine being, drawn from the cycle of eternity to inaugurate a new earthly cosmos, could return to the eternity from which he came. In that sense Diocletion was aeternus, and in that sense his aeternitas was of deep significance if securitas was to remain perpetua for much longer.”

Closing Date and Time: 6 October 2021 at 12:03:20 ET.

All winning bids are subject to an 18% buyer’s fee.