281, Lot: 456. Estimate $750. Sold for $1200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Theodosius I. AD 379-395. AV Solidus (21mm, 4.37 g, 5h). Uncertain military mint. Struck circa AD 393-395. Rosette-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Theodosius standing right, left foot on bound captive, holding labarum and Victory on globe; S-M//COMOB. RIC IX 12b.1 (Sirmium); Depeyrot 31/4 (Theodosius II; Sirmium). Good VF, flan crack, obverse die deterioration from ear extending to back of head.

Although the dating of this issue is fairly certain (but for Depeyrot, who attributes the coin to Theodosius II), assignment of this type to a particular mint is controversial. The conventional attribution was, per Elmer and RIC, to the mint of Sirmium, based on the western mint marking conventions seen on this coin (S-M//COMOB). However, many numismatists had strong reservations: Sirmium had been closed for some time, the style is closer to that of eastern mints, and attributing these issues to Sirmium left Constantinople and Thessalonica without any gold issues in this period. Grierson and Mays, echoed by Kent, persuasively argue that this issue is the product of workers from Constantinople or Thessalonica (see DOCLR pp. 118-121 and RIC X p. 36). Elmer had thought that Theodosius moved to Sirmium to campaign against Eugenius, and reopened its mint to produce money for his operations, but imperial records indicate that Theodosius was actually in Constantinople for this entire period. While Grierson and Mays think these coins were issued at Constantinople or Thessalonica, Kent leaves open the possibility that the workers were temporarily outsourced to another mint. The unusual “western” quality of the mintmark seems to support this idea, and it is possible that this issue was struck at a military mint to support operations against Eugenius in the west.