Exceptional DEO SANCTO Bronze

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 773. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Time of Maximinus II. AD 310-313. Æ 15mm (1.45 g, 12h). Alexandria mint. DEO SANCT-O SA-RAPID[I], head of Serapis right, wearing modius / DEO SANCTO NILO, Nilus reclining left, holding reed in right hand, cradling cornucopia in left arm; G//ALE. Van Heesch, Maximinus, 6b. Good VF, dark green patina, light earthen encrustation. Exceptional for issue.

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, reached its height in Nicomedia, Antioch and Alexandria. Churches were closed and property was seized from Christians, who 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.