329, Lot: 536. Estimate $150. Sold for $160. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Maximianus. First reign, AD 286-305. Æ Follis (25mm, 10.59 g, 12h). Antioch mint, 1st officina. Struck circa AD 306. D N MAXIMIANO FELICISSIMO SEN AVG, laureate and mantled bust right, holding olive branch and mappa / Providentia standing right, extending right hand towards Quies standing left, holding branch and scepter; ANT:. RIC VI 77b var. (officina in right field). VF, earthen black patina.

From the Fairfield Collection. Ex Roma (21 May 2013), lot 1607.

Diocletian’s grand plan for reorganizing the empire involved the first formal division of power to permit closer monitoring of the various provinces and borders. Diocletian and his partner Maximianus would rule as Augusti in the east and west, with Constantius I and Galerius as subordinate Caesars. The most remarkable innovation came out in 303, when Diocletian decreed that he and Maximianus would retire and be replaced by the two elevated Caesars. In 305, the first voluntary abdication in Roman imperial history took place, with Diocletian and Maximianus being granted the new titles of Seniores Augusti, Felicissimi et Beatissimi. Diocletian gladly retired to his estate in Spalatum (modern Split in Croatia), but Maximianus chafed at the idea of retiring. When his son Maxentius, one of the new Caesars, proclaimed himself emperor in 306, Maximianus joined him as co-ruler. Diocletian came out of retirement to force a conference at Carnuntum in 308, which condemned Maximianus and eventually led to his suicide in 310. Diocletian had preserved the Tetrarchy for a while longer, but within a few years of his death the system collapsed in civil war.