Continuing my 4 part series on anonymous civic coinage which happens to coincide with my 1000th CT post I present my findings for the IOVI series. A relative new comer to my collection can be seen here to aid as a visual. Mint: Antioch Obvs: IOVI CONSERVATORI, Jupiter seated holding globe and scepter. Revs: VICTORIA AVGG, Victory advancing left holding wreath and palm branch. ANT in exergue. AE 14x15mm, 1.39g Ref: Vagi 2955; Van Heesch 2; McAlee 171j Fortunately we can use the same controls found on series I to date these as well. If you haven't already read the previous POST on these which explains how I came to my conclusions, the workshops are really the key to dating these. The main difference is now the delta and epsilon are in opposite fields like the coin below. That coupled with the abbreviated version of ANT, places these from 299 to 310 AD according to RIC VI. Again the post on series I explains the purpose of these enigmatic coins and why I don't associate them to persecutions of Christians directly. The imagery of Jupiter clearly fits with Diocletian whom personified himself as a god. Just like series I, I tie these to the Olympic games of the early 4th century, but finding which year needs some explaining. Using Remijsen's work we can place Olympics in Antioch in the years 300, 304, and 308 to match our time frame from the workshops. 308 can be eliminated because it was past his abdication and in 304 he would have been in the Danube frontier and later in Nicomedia and also suffered a complication from an illness. So that places this series to the summer of 300 AD. This post is a very short and simplified explanation and the entire version can be found in greater detail on my site @ http://allcoinage.com/anonymous_series2.php And if you missed part I, it can be found here https://www.cointalk.com/threads/sacred-apollo-anonymous-civic-coinage-part-i.338433/
Really interesting. These "anonymous" issues are fascinating. I also like the VOTA PVBLICA types with Anubis when most of the empire was going Christian. Kind of like a last hurrah for pagans and those who still worshipped the old gods.
I briefly glanced this post before you deleted your observations. I think you mentioned the eastern hoard from Van Heesch's article, die axis, mintmarks, and....? It seems his 1993 article is the one everyone references. I am grateful for his research and even consulted him on one of my coins. The hoard he referenced was incomplete as I understand it, only being half present when studied out of possibly 2000 coins. Though a data point I can't use a half hoard as basis for dating. Die axis can be useful in some cases, but I don't think that is true here. Being at 6 or 12 o'clock could merely be coincidental and don't believe that is proof of belonging to a specific date. We both agree on the mintmark dates (at least for series I), but he does not go into much detail about his proposed date of 312 other than it resembles other styles from that year. This was the easiest to determine as the coins fall into the 299 to 310 time frame via workshop 9. I let the evidence lead me to conclusions and am open to discussion especially since I will be publishing an article on these.
Those are interesting but a bit harder to acquire . I agree, after the 4th century it is rarer to find coinage with the old roman/Greek gods on them.
FYI within a few years an enraged mob of Christians attacked and burned down the Serapeum in Alexandria, also killing the astronomer/mathematician Hypatia. So it was not a good time to be a pagan.
I have a web page on these types: http://augustuscoins.com/ed/MaximinusII/ This is one of the rarer types.
I discussed this type here which I date to the summer of 312. That is a nice one Warren and it's a die match to this one which I believe is the second known.
Saw one on VCoins the other day.... $990.00 https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/at...p_maximinus_ii_ad_310313/1106454/Default.aspx
On my page I wrote this about the anepigraphic type I illustrated above: "There are many more examples of each type than van Heesch found in 1993. I have notes on at least 8 examples of type #5 without legend in sale catalogs and at least 7 examples of type #4 with legends (and I stopped taking notes in 2009)."
