167, Lot: 196. Estimate $100. Sold for $210. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Time of Maximinus II. AD 310-313. Æ 1/4 Follis (18mm, 1.52 g). Turreted, veiled and draped bust of Tyche right / Apollo standing left, holding patera and lyre. Van Heesch, Last 5, pl. 11, 8. VF, find patina. Scarce.

From the C. G. Collection. Ex Stack’s (12 April 1995), lot 348.

J. van Heesch has provided the latest chronology for the anonymous civic bronzes of the fourth century. Under the auspices of Maximinus II, an active campaign of persecution against local Christians was particularly strong in Nicomedia, Antioch, and Alexandria, the three main mint centers in the eastern empire. Churches were closed, Christian property was seized, and professed Christians were expelled from many cities. To commemorate the pagan victory, these cities struck a series of small bronzes honoring the old Greco-Roman gods: Jupiter, Apollo, Tyche, and Serapis. The persecutions subsided the following year, possibly as a result of concerns expressed by Constantine and Licinius, the emperors in the west.