Dea Moneta
login
Banner Artemide 65E
The Persecution Of The Christians
Lot # 609 - Maximinus II Daia (309-313). AE Follis, mint of Nicomedia, c. 310-313 AD. Obv. DEAE SANC CERERI. Veiled and draped bust of Ceres left, holding grain ear and poppy in raised right hand. Rev. GEN CIVI T NICOM. Fortuna Redux standing facing, head left, holding in right hand rudder set on ground and cradling cornucopia in left arm; in exergue, OPA. Van Heesch, Last 1. AE. 1.49 g. 15.50 mm. RRR. Extremely rare. Lovely dark patina with minor earthy deposits. About VF. A little-known page of late ancient Roman history concerns the last persecutions of Christians, when they were still a religious minority. We often talk about the 'Diocletian persecutions', when in reality the Augustus Maximus didn't have an active role (while he did against the Manichaeans), unlike Galerius who saw himself as the promoter of a persecutory campaign in 302-303 in the East of the Empire. The persecutions of 310-313 were instead the fruit of a popular uprising under Maximinus Daia, by then Augustus in the East. According to Eusebius of Caesarea he would have collected the requests presented by the delegations of the cities of Nicomedia, Alexandria and Antioch (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 9), which considered unacceptable that Christians were allowed to live with them (the edict of tolerance passed shortly before prevented the prosecution of religious minorities). These requests were certainly driven by the fear that Christians could supplant the pagan divinities, on whose cult part of the economy of those cities was based. On the obverse of this coin the goddess Ceres is represented, while on the obverse there is the goddess Fortuna with the legend that recalls the Genius of the city of Nicomedia, still deeply pagan and determined to defend its roots.
Lot # 635 - Majorian (457-461). AE 14 mm. Mediolanum mint. Obv. DN MAIORIANVS PF AVG. Pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right. Rev. VICTORIA AVGG. Victory standing left, holding wreath and palm branch; in exergue, MD. RIC X 2641-2644. AE. 1.41 g. 14.00 mm. Scarce. Dark patina. VF/About VF. Julius Valerius Majorian owned his name to his maternal grandfather, who had been magister militum in Illyricum in the 370s. He had himself served with distinction under Aetius, and in 455 he was considered a possible successor of Valentinian III. Presumably, when he and Ricimer deposed Avitus in October 456, it was intended that he should succeed him, but according to Sidonius Apollinaris, who knew him personally, he was reluctant to assume the burden, and an interregnum of six months followed during which he and Ricimer were in fact masters of the West but the Emperors were nominally Marcian and, after January 457, Leo. Even after he had been proclaimed emperor by the army outside Rome on 1st April 457, he continued to call himself no more than magister militum, and he was not proclaimed at Ravenna until 28 December 457. Just as Avitus had not been acceptable in Italy, so Majorian was not acceptable in Gaul. In 458 he led an army of German mercenaries into the Rhone valley, made himself master of Lyon, which had accepted a Burgundian garrison, and having defeated the Visigoths outside Arles, he compelled them to come to terms. But his Gallic successes in 458/9 were followed by misfortunes in Spain in 460/1. Two naval expeditions planned against Gaiseric met with disaster, and he was forced to return to Italy with no accomplishment to his credit. Such successes as he had had, however, aroused the suspicions of Ricimer: Majorian, who had deserved better things, was seized by treachery at Tortona on 2 August, deposed, and beheaded five days later. AE4 were struck under Majorian at Milan, Ravenna and Rome […] The coins of all three mints are larger and substantially heavier than any Western bronze coins had been since the reign of Honorius. Lacam (1988, 220) has suggested that these unusually high weights are to be explained by Ricimer's need for betterc coin to offer Gundobald's mercenaries when preparing for his campaign against the Vandals, but it is difficult to immagine any troops being satisfied with such miserable scraps of metal. (Grierson-Mays 'Catalogue of Late Roman Coin in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection', Washington, 1992, pp. 250-252).