243, Lot: 470. Estimate $100. Sold for $460. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Time of Maximinus II. AD 310-313. Æ (15mm, 1.51 g, 11h). ‘Persecution’ issue. Antioch mint, 2nd officina. Full-length figure of the Tyche of Antioch seated facing on rock pile; below, half-length bust of river god Orontes facing, with arms spread / Apollo standing left, holding patera and lyre; -/B//AMS. Van Heesch, Last 3b var. (officina). VF, dark green patina.

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.