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Anonymous “Great
Persecution of Christians Issue”
struck under:
Maximinus II, Daia –
Roman Emperor
: 308-313 A.D. –
Bronze Quarter-Nummus 15mm (1.38 grams) Antioch mint, circa 310-313 AD.
Reference: Vagi
2954; Cohen 1 [Julian II], van Heesch 92
GENIO ANTIOCHINI, Tyche of Antioch enthroned facing, river god swimming at her
feet.
APOLLONI SANCTO, Apollo
standing left holding patera & lyre, A in field
to right , SMA in exergue.
PAGAN COINAGE OF THE GREAT
PERSECUTION
Though formerly attributed to the period of Julian II, these pieces were struck
c. 305-313 as part of The Great Persecution of Christians in the east by
Diocletian, Galerius and Maximinus II Daia. Though the persecution of Christians
had occurred under many previous regimes since the 1st Century, it was pursued
assiduously by the Tetrarchs. Indeed, it was only halted (it would seem) when
they determined that it was working to the advantage of Constantine the Great,
who embraced the religion as a result. Associated with the persecution is a
series of ‘autonomous’ coins struck at the cities of Antioch, Nicomedia and
Alexandria. The bulk of these coins were probably struck c. 310-312 under
Galerius or Maximinus Daia (though the issues of Nicomedia can perhaps be
attributed to Galeria Valeria, the second wife of Galerius). The issues of
Alexandria occur in two denominations and celebrate Serapis and Nilus. With the
voluminous issues of Antioch we find a variety of mint marks, officinae and
control marks, which suggest the output was large and complex. Depicted on the
issues of Antioch are some of the city’s most famous statues: the Tyche erected
by Eutychides (a pupil of Lysippus), the Apollo by Bryaxis of Athens, and
possibly the Zeus Nikephoros of the Temple of Apollo at Daphne which Antiochus
IV commissioned for his great festival of 167 B.C.
You are bidding on the exact
item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
Guarantee of Authenticity.
The Diocletianic or
Great
Persecution was the last and most severe
Persecution of Christians
in the
Roman Empire
. In 303, the
Emperors
Diocletian
,
Maximian
,
Galerius
, and
Constantius
issued a series of
edicts
rescinding the legal rights of
Christians and demanding that they comply with
traditional Roman religious practices
. Later
edicts targeted the clergy and ordered all inhabitants to sacrifice to the Roman
gods (a policy known as universal sacrifice). The persecution varied in
intensity across the empire—weakest in
Gaul and
Britain
, where only the first edict was
applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified
by different emperors at different times, but
Constantine
and
Licinius
‘s
Edict of Milan
(313) has traditionally marked
the end of the persecution.
The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer, by
Jean-Léon Gérôme
(1883)
Christians had always been subject to local discrimination in the empire, but
early emperors were either too reluctant to issue general laws against them or,
at least in the 3rd century (see
Crisis of the Third Centuryy
), too caught up
with more immediate issues to do so. It was not until the 250s, under the reigns
of Decius
and
Valerian
, that such laws were passed. Under
this legislation, Christians were compelled to sacrifice to Roman gods or face
imprisonment and execution. When
Gallienus
acceded in 260, he issued the first
imperial edict regarding
tolerance
toward Christians, leading to nearly
40 years of
peaceful coexistence
. Diocletian’s accession in
284 did not mark an immediate reversal of disregard to Christianity, but it did
herald a gradual shift in official attitudes toward religious minorities. In the
first fifteen years of his rule, Diocletian purged the army of Christians,
condemned
Manicheans
to death, and surrounded himself
with public opponents of Christianity. Diocletian’s preference for autocratic
government, combined with his self-image as a restorer of past Roman glory,
presaged the most pervasive persecution in Roman history. In the winter of 302,
Galerius urged Diocletian to begin a general persecution of the Christians.
Diocletian was wary, and asked the
oracle of Apollo
for guidance. The oracle’s
reply was read as an endorsement of Galerius’s position, and a general
persecution was called on February 24, 303.
Persecutory policies varied in intensity across the empire. Where Galerius
and Diocletian were avid persecutors, Constantius was unenthusiastic. Later
persecutory edicts, including the calls for universal sacrifice, were not
applied in his domain. His son, Constantine, on taking the imperial office in
306, restored Christians to full legal equality and returned property that had
been confiscated during the persecution. In Italy in 306, the usurper
Maxentius
ousted Maximian’s successor
Severus
, promising full religious toleration.
Galerius
ended the persecution in the East in 311
, but
it was resumed in Egypt
,
Palestine
, and
Asia Minor
by his successor,
Maximinus
. Constantine and Licinius, Severus’s
successor, signed the
Edict of Milan
in 313, which offered a more
comprehensive acceptance of Christianity than Galerius’s edict had provided.
Licinius ousted Maximinus in 313, bringing an end to persecution in the East.
The persecution failed to check the rise of the church. By 324, Constantine
was sole ruler of the empire, and Christianity had become his favored religion.
Although the persecution resulted in death, torture, imprisonment, or
dislocation for many Christians, the majority of the empire’s Christians avoided
punishment. The persecution did, however, cause many churches to split between
those who had complied with imperial authority (the
traditores
), and those who had remained
“pure”. Certain schisms, like those of the
Donatists
in North Africa and the
Meletians
in Egypt, persisted long after the
persecutions. The Donatists would not be reconciled to the
Church
until after 411. In the centuries that
followed, some historians claim that Christians created a “cult of the martyrs”,
and exaggerated the barbarity of the persecutory era. These accounts were
criticized during the
Enlightenment
and afterwards, most notably by
Edward Gibbon
. Modern historians, such as
G. E. M. de Ste. Croix
, have attempted to
determine whether Christian sources exaggerated the scope of the Diocletianic
persecution.
Tyche (Greek for luck; the Roman equivalent was
Fortuna
) was the presiding
tutelary deity
that governed the fortune and
prosperity of a city, its destiny. Increasingly during the Hellenistic period,
cities had their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a
mural crown
(a crown like the walls of the
city).
The
Greek historian Polybius
believed that when no cause can be
discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then
the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche.
Stylianos Spyridakis concisely expressed Tyche’s appeal in a
Hellenistic world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: “In the
turbulent years of the
Epigoni of Alexander
, an awareness of the
instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind
mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the
vicissitudes of the time.”
In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of
Hermes
and
Aphrodite
, or considered as one of the
Oceanids
, daughters of
Oceanus
and
Tethys
, or of
Zeus. She was connected with
Nemesis
and
Agathos Daimon
(“good spirit”).
She was uniquely venerated at
Itanos
in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia,
linked with the Athenian
Protogeneia
(“firstborn”), daughter of
Erechtheus
, whose self-sacrifice saved the
city.
She had temples at
Caesarea Maritima
,
Antioch
,
Alexandria
and
Constantinople
. In
Alexandria
the Tychaeon, the temple of
Tyche, was described by
Libanius
as one of the most magnificent of the
entire Hellenistic world.
Tyche appears on many
coins
of the Hellenistic period in the three
centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean.
Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of
Hellenistic romances
, such as
Leucippe and Clitophon
or
Daphnis and Chloe
. She experienced a
resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly
sanctioned
Paganism
, between the late-fourth-century
emperors
Julian
and
Theodosius I
who definitively closed the
temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability
in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a
commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot.
In medieval art
, she was depicted as carrying a
cornucopia
, an
emblematic
ship’s rudder, and the
wheel of fortune
, or she may stand on the
wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate.
The constellation of
Virgo
is sometimes identified as the heavenly
figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as
Demeter
and
Astraea
.
In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
,
Apollo, is one of the most
important and diverse of the
Olympian deities
. The ideal of the
kouros
(a beardless youth), Apollo has been
variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy;
archery
; medicine and healing; music, poetry,
and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of
Zeus and Leto
, and has a
twin
sister, the chaste huntress
Artemis
. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced
Etruscan mythology
as Apulu. Apollo was
worshiped in both
ancient Greek
and
Roman religion
, as well as in the modern
Greco
–Roman
Neopaganism
.
As the patron of Delphi
(Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an
oracular
god — the prophetic deity of the
Delphic Oracle
. Medicine and healing were
associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his
son Asclepius
, yet Apollo was also seen as a god
who could bring ill-health and deadly
plague
as well as one who had the ability to
cure. Amongst the god’s custodial charges, Apollo became associated with
dominion over
colonists
, and as the patron defender of herds
and flocks. As the leader of the
Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo
functioned as the patron god of music and
poetry
.
Hermes
created the
lyre for him, and the instrument became a common
attribute
of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were
called paeans
.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo
Helios he became identified among Greeks with
Helios
,
god of the sun
, and his sister Artemis
similarly equated with
Selene
,
goddess of the moon
. In Latin texts, on the
other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of
Apollo with
Sol
among the
Augustan poets
of the first century, not even
in the conjurations of
Aeneas
and
Latinus
in
Aeneid
XII (161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol
remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third
century CE.
Gaius Valerius Galerius Maximinus (20
November, c. 270 – July/August, 313)
Roman emperor
from 308 to
 313,
was originally named Daia. He was born of peasant stock to the half
sister of the Roman emperor
Galerius
near their family lands around
Felix Romuliana
; a rural area now in the Danubian region of
Serbia
, then
the newly reorganised Roman province of
Dacia Aureliana
subordinated to the later
Prefecture of Illyricum
).
He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in 305 he was
adopted by his maternal uncle,
Galerius
,
and raised to the rank of
caesar
, with the government of
Syria
and
Aegyptus
.
In 308, after the elevation of
Licinius
to
Augustus
, Maximinus and
Constantine
were declared filii Augustorum (“sons of the Augusti”),
but Maximinus probably started styling himself after Augustus during a campaign
against the
Sassanids
in 310.
On the death of Galerius, in 311, Maximinus divided the Eastern Empire
between Licinius and himself. When Licinius and
Constantine
began to make common cause with one another, Maximinus entered
into a secret alliance with the usurper Caesar
Maxentius
,
who controlled Italy. He came to an open rupture with Licinius in 313, he
summoned an army of 70,000 men, but still sustained a crushing defeat at the
Battle of Tzirallum
, in the neighbourhood of
Heraclea Pontica
, on the
April 30
,
and fled, first to
Nicomedia
and afterwards to
Tarsus
, where he died the following August. His death was variously ascribed
“to despair, to poison, and to the divine justice”.[
neededcitations]
Maximinus has a bad name in
Christian
annals, as having renewed persecution after the publication of the
toleration edict of Galerius (see
Edict of Toleration by Galerius
).
Eusebius of Caesarea
[1],
for example, writes that Maximinus conceived an “insane passion” for a Christian
girl of Alexandria
, who was of noble birth noted for her wealth, education, and
virginity. When the girl refused his advances, he exiled her and seized all of
her wealth and assets.
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