RECENTLY a friend gave me an awfulcoin. It is only 15 mms in diameter,

and it is very worn and badly corroded.(Figure 1) Actually I was not even surethat it was a coin. I thought it might be asmall stone or a seed, but when I looked

carefully at it I could see the outline ofan angel on one side. It reminded me ofthe goddess Victory who appears on smallbronze, silver and gold coins of Constan-tius II and some other 4th century Romanemperors. (Figures 2, 3 and 4) My coin,however, could not be one of those be-cause the image on the other side doesnot look like the head of an emperor, andthey all have the head of the emperoron the obverse.From the 4th century there is a series

of anonymous bronze coins that do nothave the head of an emperor on theobverse. They have various gods andgoddesses on the obverse and reverse.In this series the coin with Victory onthe reverse has Jupiter seated on theobverse. (Figure 5) On the obverse of mycoin the image is very distorted by wear

and corrosion but it looks more likethe seated Jupiter than the head of anemperor. So I think it is probably anexample of the Jupiter / Victory coins inthe anonymous series. In the exergueon the reverse of these Jupiter / Victorycoins the letters ANT stand for the cityof Antioch in Syria, and in the right fieldthe numeral letters A to I (i.e. 1 to 10)indicate which of the ten factories inAntioch minted the coin. The coin inFigure 5 has the letter I, which meansit was made in the tenth factory. Aquirky feature of these Greek letters isthat Θ (9) is avoided, and instead theletters Δ (4) and ε (5) appear, and 4 + 5= 9. (Figure 6) The reason for this wasthat Θ is the first letter in the Greekword θανατος (thanatos), which means‘death’. So 9 was ‘the death number’, just

Ruined temple of Zeus at Gerasa (Jerash) in Jordan. (Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Berthold Werner)

Figure 1 – My mystery coin. It is14 mms in diameter and weighs 1.82 grams.

It is worn and corroded.Figure 2 – Bronze coin of Valens (364-378 AD).

Obverse: bust of Valens. Reverse: Victory advancing to the left. (Vcoins: Münzen Ritter)

as 4 is ‘the death number’ in Chinesenumerology and is usually avoided bysuperstitious Chinese.These coins are anonymous, i.e. there

is no emperor’s name on them or anyindication of the date they were minted.When these coins initially came to theattention of numismatists in the 19th

century the first name to enter theirminds was Julian II, who was Augustus(emperor) from 360 to 363 AD, andCaesar (a lower rank) from 355 to 360.

Although brought up as a Christian hegrew to dislike Christianity and triedto revive the ancient religion. Histori-ans called him “Julian the Apostate.”An apostate is someone who abandonsa religious faith. Although he did notactually persecute the Christians hepromoted the worship of the old gods andgoddesses, so he was considered a good

candidate to be the emperor who issuedthese anonymous coins. Henry Cohen (Figure 7) wrote a cat-

alogue of Roman coins in eight volumesin the second half of the 19th century andin it he attributes the anonymous coinsto Julian. In the eighth volume of thesecond edition published in 1892 theJupiter / Victory coin is number 53 in

Figure 3 – Reduced siliqua of Constantius II (324-361 AD). Obverse: bust of Constantius. Reverse: Victory advancing to the left. (Roma Numismatics, Auction 8, Lot 1101)

Figure 4 – Gold 1½ scripulum of Constantius II(324-361 AD). Obverse: bust of Constantius.Reverse: Victory advancing to the left. (Auk-tionshaus H.D. Rauch, Auction 86, Lot 1236)

Figure 5 – Anonymous bronze coin of Antioch. 15 mms diameter. Obverse: Jupiter seated left.He holds a globe in his right hand and a sceptre in his left. IOVI CONSERVATORI means “toJupiter, Preserver.” Reverse: Victory advancing to the left. She holds a wreath in her right handand a palm in her left. VICTORIA AVGG means “the victory of the emperors.” In exergue: ANT.In right field: I. (The New York Sale, Auction XIV, Lot 440)

Figure 6 – Anonymous bronze coin. 15 mms diameter. Same as coin in Figure 5 but with theGreek letters for 4 and 5 in the fields on the reverse. (Agora Auctions, Auction 48, Lot 242)

his list of Julian’s coins. Subsequentnumismatists followed Cohen’s founda-tional work and listed the anonymouscoins as coins of Julian II. In the fourthrevised edition of David Sear’s RomanCoins and their values published in 1988and reprinted in 1994 the anonymousJupiter / Victory coin is attributed to thereign of Julian II and is No. 4080 (withCohen 53 as the reference).The attribution to Julian II was in-

correct, and the person responsible forthe correct attribution was Johan vanHeesch. He is President of the RoyalNumismatic Society of Belgium andKeeper of Coins and Medals in the RoyalLibrary, and he teaches numismatics atthe universities of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve. In 1993 he wrote an article inthe Numismatic Chronicle about theseanonymous coins, and he used an ingen-ious method to date them: he looked at

the die-axes. Most numismatists do notbother with the die-axis of a coin and theycould not even say what the die-axis ofan Australian dollar is. If you take adollar and spin it around horizontally(as the planet Earth spins) the imagewill be the right way up, and the die-axis is said to be 12 o’clock. In numis-matic books this is sometimes writtenas 12h or shown by an arrow pointing up.If a coin has one of the images upside

Figure 7 – Henry Cohen was a music teacherand a composer. He was also a numismatistand served as curator of the coin cabinet at theNational Library of France. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Figure 8 – A bust of Maximinus II. It is in thePushkin Museum in Moscow and is a cast ofa red-porphyry bust in the Cairo Museum. It isjust over life-size. (Photo: Shakko/Wikipedia)

Figure 9 – Gold aureus of Maximinus II as Caesar (305-308 AD) minted at Antioch. Obverse:Laureate head of Maximinus. Reverse: Jupiter holds a thunderbolt. An eagle (his symbol) standsat his feet. IOVI CONS CAES means “to Jupiter, Protector of the Caesar.” (Leu NumismaticsAG, Auction 93, lot 127)

Figure 10 – Anonymous bronze coin of Nicomedia. Obverse: Diademed and veiled bust of thegrain goddess, Ceres. She holds ears of corn in her hand. DEAE SANC CERERI means “to theholy goddess, Ceres.” Reverse: Fortuna holds a rudder and a cornucopia. GEN CIVIT NICOMmeans “to the genius of the city of Nicomedia.” In the exergue OPA is a mint-mark of Nicomedia.(Fritz Rudolf Künker, Auction 136, Lot 1236.)

Figure 11 – Anonymous bronze coin of Alexandria. Obverse: Head of Sarapis with a modius (bas-ket) on his head. DEO SANCTO SARAPIDI means “to the holy god Sarapis.” Reverse: Nile godreclining on a hippopotamus. He holds a reed and a cornucopia. DEO SANCTO NILO means “tothe holy god, Nilus.” (Auktionshaus H.D. Rauch, Auction 89, Lot 2040)

down, the die axis is 6 o’clock and thearrow points down. Van Heesch looked atthe die-axes of a number of the bronzecoins called folles or nummi minted atAntioch from 297 to 315 AD. These coinshave a weight four times the weight ofthe anonymous Jupiter / Victory coins, theaverage weight of which is 1.40 grams.He then arranged a large number offolles according to the date of their mint-ing, and he found that almost all thefolles from 309 to 311 had a die-axis of12 o’clock, but in 312 77% had a die-axisof 12 o’clock and 23% had a die-axis of 6o’clock, and from 313 to 315 the die-axeswere about 50% each way. Then he lookedat the die-axes of the anonymous Jupiter/Victory coins and found that about 70%had a die-axis of 12 o’clock and about 28%had a die-axis of 6 o’clock. He thereforeconcluded that 312 was the most likelydate when these coins were minted andthat they were issued by Maximinus II.(Figures 8 and 9) His surname wasDaia or Daza, and to distinguish himfrom Maximinus I Thrax (235-238 AD)he is often called Maximinus II Daia. Hewas Caesar in the eastern part of theRoman Empire from 305 to 308 (underhis uncle, Galerius) and Augustus therefrom 309 to 313. To support his conclusion Van Heesch

looked carefully at the history of theeastern part of the Roman Empire in

312. In that year Maximinus II con-trolled Anatolia (modern Turkey), Syriaand Egypt. Nicomedia in Anatolia andAlexandria in Egypt had issued smallanonymous coins similar to those fromAntioch. The coins of Nicomedia hadCeres (the grain goddess) on the obverseand the genius of the city on the reverse(Figure 10), and the coins of Alexandriahad the god, Sarapis or Serapis, on theobverse and the Nile river-god on thereverse. (Figure 11) He concluded thatall three cities issued these coins in 312. When Maximinus became Caesar in

305 he began to enforce severe anti-Christian measures in his territories, inkeeping with the policy of Galerius, whowas very anti-Christian and had thou-sands of Christians executed. In May311 Galerius died, but a few days beforehe died he issued an edict of toleration.Maximinus, however, continued to per-secute the Christians. Because the citiesunder his control derived much of theirincome from religious activities suchas games and festivals they saw an opportunity to rid themselves of the Chris-tians whom they saw as a threat to theirprosperity. Encouraged by Maximinusthey sent embassies to him. Represen-tatives from Nicomedia brought imagesof their gods with them and requestedthat Christians not be allowed to livein their city. An embassy from Antiochwanted the Christians banished. Eventhe little town of Colbasa in Pisidia (Fig-ure 12) wanted to get rid of them. Aninscription found at Colbasa and writtenin April 312 reads in part: But as forthose who have persisted in the abom-inable cult, let them be separated, just asyou ask, far from your city and territory,and be removed, whereby, in accord withthe praiseworthy zeal of your petition,your city, separated from the stain ofevery impiety, may respond, as it hasbeen accustomed, to the sacred rites ofthe immortal gods with the worshipwhich is owed to them.In 312 Maximinus executed a number

of leading Christians and appointedpriests of the old religion in every city.He waged war against the ChristianArmenians, and this might account forthe figure of Victory on the Jupiter / Vic-tory coins. Also the figure of Jupitermight be an image of the idol of Jupiter(Zeus) that was commissioned in 167 BCby Antiochus IV for the temple of Apolloat Daphne near Antioch. In February 313 Constantine (the

Augustus in the west) and Licinius (whohad been appointed Augustus in the eastby Galerius) met at Milan and decidedon a policy of benevolence towards theChristians. Maximinus then crossed withhis army into Europe but was defeatedby Licinius near Byzantium in April 313.He then fled to Tarsus where he died in

August. In view of these historical eventsVan Heesch concluded that the anony-mous coins were issued during the periodof renewed persecution from the end of311 to December 312, and that thesecoins, “on which the imperial portraitwas replaced by images of the ancientimmortal gods, were intended as anti-Christian propaganda.” The details ofhis argument are in his 1993 article,“The Last Civic Coinages and the Relig-ious policy of Maximinus Daza (AD 312).”Following Van Heesch, David Sear inVolume 4 of his Roman Coins and theirvalues (published in 2011) has a specialsection entitled “Anonymous issues underMaximinus II related to the final perse-cution of the Christians.” In it he lists allthe anonymous coins as quarter follesand they include the Jupiter / Victorycoin and a Tyche / Apollo coin of Antioch.(Figure 13) As they contain a smallamount of silver he calls them billonquarter folles. My coin eventually ended up in the

earth where the dirt was particularlydamaging to the metal resulting in itspresent awful condition. It may not evenbe one of the coins related to the finalpersecution of the Christians, but itreminds me of those terrible times whenpeople were persecuted because of theirfaith. The Jews suffered greatly in NaziGermany as do Christians in parts ofthe Middle East today.

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Figure 12 – Bronze coin of Colbasa in Pisidia.Obverse: Bust of Julia Domna, wife of Septi-mius Severus (193-211 AD). Reverse: Cybeleenthroned. She was worshipped throughoutAnatolia. (Gorny & Mosch, Auction 126, Lot 1936)

Figure 13 – Anonymous bronze coin of Anti-och. Obverse: Tyche (city goddess) of Antiochwith the river-god, Orontes, swimming at herfeet. The statue stood in a shrine in the city. Re-verse: Apollo holding a lyre and a patera (bowlfor sacrificing). There was a temple complexjust south of Antioch dedicated to Apollo.(Pegasi Numismatics, Auction XXIV, Lot 617)