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Anonymous “Pagan Coin of the Great Persecution of
Christians”
Quarter-Nummus 17mm (1.62 grams)
Struck under Maximinus II Daia at Antioch mint: 310 AD.
Reference: Vagi 2955
IOVI CONSERVATORI – Jupiter as “Zeus Nikephoros” seated left, holding globe and
scepter.
VICTORIA AVG G Exe: Δ/Є/ANT – Victory
advancing left, holding wreath and palm branch.
* Numismatic Note: This issue makes an interesting connection
in the persecution of Christians as the Jews were persecuted under Antiochus IV
almost 500 years before.
You are bidding on the exact
item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
Guarantee of Authenticity.
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 occured 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.
Sacking of Jerusalem and Persecution of Jews
While Antiochus was busy in Egypt, a rumor spread that he had been killed.
The
deposed
High Priest
Jason
gathered a force of 1,000 soldiers and
made a surprise attack on the city of Jerusalem. An official Antiochus appointed
as High Priest,
Menelaus
, was forced to flee Jerusalem during a
riot. On the King’s return from Egypt in 167 BC enraged by his defeat, he
attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus, then executed many Jews.
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When these happenings were reported to the king, he thought that Judea
was in revolt. Raging like a wild animal, he set out from Egypt and took
Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy
those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses.
There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children,
a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty
thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same
number being sold into slavery. |
” |
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—
2 Maccabees
5:11-14
|
To consolidate his empire and strengthen his hold over the region, Antiochus
decided to side with the
Hellenized Jews
by outlawing
Jewish religious rites and traditions
kept by
observant Jews and by ordering the worship of
Zeus
as the supreme god. This was anathema to the Jews and when they
refused, Antiochus sent an army to enforce his decree. Because of the
resistance, the city was destroyed, many were slaughtered, and a military Greek
citadel
called the
Acra
was established.
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“ |
Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews
to abandon the customs of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws
of God; also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to
Olympian Zeus, and that on Mount Gerizim to Zeus the Hospitable, as the
inhabitants of the place requested.. They also brought into the temple
things that were forbidden, so that the altar was covered with
abominable offerings prohibited by the laws. A man could not keep the sabbath or celebrate the traditional feasts, nor even admit that he was
a Jew. At the suggestion of the citizens of Ptolemais, a decree was
issued ordering the neighboring Greek cities to act in the same way
against the Jews: oblige them to partake of the sacrifices, and put to
death those who would not consent to adopt the customs of the Greeks. It
was obvious, therefore, that disaster impended. Thus, two women who were
arrested for having circumcised their children were publicly paraded
about the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then
thrown down from the top of the city wall. Others, who had assembled in
nearby caves to observe the sabbath in secret, were betrayed to Philip
and all burned to death. |
” |
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—
2 Maccabees
6:1-11
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In the
ancient Greek
religion
,
Zeus
zews
zooss
;
Ancient Greek
:
Ζεύς;
Modern Greek
:
Δίας, Dias) was the “Father of Gods and men” (πατὴρ
ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε)
who ruled the Olympians of
Mount Olympus
as a father ruled the family. He was the
god of sky
and
thunder
in
Greek mythology
.
His
Roman
counterpart is
Jupiter
and
Etruscan
counterpart is Tinia
.![The Jupiter de Smyrne, discovered in Smyrna in 1680[1]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Jupiter_Smyrna_Louvre_Ma13.jpg/200px-Jupiter_Smyrna_Louvre_Ma13.jpg)
Zeus was the child of
Cronus
and
Rhea
,
and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to
Hera, although, at the
oracle of Dodona
,
his consort was
Dione
:
according to the Iliad
,
he is the father of
Aphrodite
by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and
heroic offspring, including
Athena
,
Apollo
and Artemis
,
Hermes
,
Persephone
(by Demeter
),
Dionysus
,
Perseus
,
Heracles
,
Helen of Troy
,
Minos
,
and the Muses
(by Mnemosyne
);
by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered
Ares,
Hebe
and Hephaestus
.
As
Walter Burkert
points out in his book, Greek Religion, “Even the gods who are not his
natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.”
For the Greeks, he was the
King of the Gods
,
who oversaw the universe. As
Pausanias
observed, “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. In
Hesiod’s Theogony
Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the
Homeric Hymns
he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods.
His symbols are the
thunderbolt
,
eagle
,
bull
,
and oak
.
In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical “cloud-gatherer”
also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the
Ancient Near East
,
such as the
scepter
.
Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing,
striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated
in majesty.
Zeus, poetically referred to by the
vocative
Zeu pater (“O, father Zeus”),
is a continuation of *Di̯ēus,
the
Proto-Indo-European
god of the daytime sky,
also called *Dyeus
ph2tēr (“Sky Father”).[9]
The god is known under this name in
Sanskrit
(compare
Dyaus/Dyaus Pita
),
Latin
(compare
Jupiter
, from Iuppiter, deriving
from the
Proto-Indo-European
vocative *dyeu-ph2tēr[10]),
deriving from the basic form *dyeu– (“to shine”, and in its many
derivatives, “sky, heaven, god”).[9]
And in
Germanic mythology
(compare *Tīwaz
>
Old High German language
Ziu,
Old Norse
Týr
), together with Latin deus,
dīvus and Dis (a variation of dīves[11]),
from the related noun *deiwos.[11]
To the Greeks and Romans, the god of the sky was also the supreme god. Zeus is
the only deity in the Olympic
pantheon
whose name has such a transparent
Indo-European etymology.
In
Greek mythology
,
Nike was a
goddess
who personified
victory
, also known as the Winged Goddess of
Victory. The Roman equivalent was
Victoria
. Depending upon the time of various
myths, she was described as the daughter of
Pallas
(Titan) and
Styx (Water) and the sister of
Kratos
(Strength),
Bia
(Force), and
Zelus
(Zeal). Nike and her siblings were close
companions of Zeus
, the dominant deity of the
Greek pantheon
. According to classical (later)
myth, Styx brought them to Zeus when
the
god was assembling allies for the
Titan War
against the older deities. Nike
assumed the role of the divine
charioteer
, a role in which she often is
portrayed in Classical Greek art. Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the
victors with glory and fame.
Nike is seen with wings in most statues and paintings. Most other winged
deities in the Greek pantheon had shed their wings by Classical times. Nike is
the goddess of strength, speed, and victory. Nike was a very close acquaintance
of Athena
, and is thought to have stood in
Athena’s outstretched hand in the statue of Athena located in the Parthenon.
Nike is one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins.
Names stemming from Nike include amongst others:
Nicholas
, Nicola, Nick, Nikolai, Nils, Klaas,
Nicole, Ike, Niki, Nikita, Nika, Niketas, and Nico.
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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