109, Lot: 245. Estimate $75. Sold for $76. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANONYMOUS. Time of the Persecutions of Maximinus II. Circa 310-312 AD. Æ Quarter Follis (11mm, 1.61 gm, 12h). Antioch mint. Tyche of Antioch seated on rocks, river god Orontes below / Apollo standing left, holding patera and lyre; G/SMA. J. van Heesch, "The Last Civic Coinages and the Religious Policy of Maximinus Daza (312 AD)", NC 1993, 3a; Vagi 2954. Good VF, black patina, light earthen encrustation.

J. van Heesch has provided the latest chronology for the anonymous civic bronzes of the 4th century. An active campaign of persecution against local Christians, abetted by Maximinus, reached its height in Nicomedia, Antioch and Alexandria. Churches were closed, property was seized from the Christians and they were expelled from many cities. The three major mint cities struck a series of small bronzes honoring the old Greco-Roman gods, Jupiter, Apollo, Tyche and Serapis among them. The persecutions subsided the following year, possibly as a result of concerns expressed by Constantine and Licinius, the emperors in the west.