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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Brian Bucklan, post: 2452218, member: 76544&quot;][USER=44316]@Valentinian[/USER] : I wrote to a well-known (unnamed) Byzantine expert in Europe and showed him the coin. He says that these are known for both Anastasius and Justin I and are actually mentioned in Dumbarton Oaks - Byzantine but are referred to as &quot;barbarous&quot; issues. He didn&#039;t think this was entirely correct and wrote this explanation:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The issue cannot be one of Anastasius, Antioch was not renamed to Theopolis until 528 per Procopius, and this correlates with the fact that the ANT* mintmark is replaced during Justinian&#039;s reign. It&#039;s also incredibly unlikely that this could be an issue of Justinian; what emperor issues a coin proclaiming another as ruler? It’s just not done as coins established the authority of the current ruler.</p><p>&nbsp; </p><p>The style is very good, so even though it&#039;s not an official issue it was done by people with similar skills and resources. We know the Sasanians minted Byzantine style coins in Egypt in the early 7th century. Henri Pottier also has made a good case that local issues in Syria were struck using the images of prior rulers during the presence of the Persian armies.</p><p>&nbsp; </p><p>In 540 the Persian army was not only near Antioch it sacked the city and removed all the inhabitants. There were no official coins in 540/41 and 541/42 and again in 543/4 544/5 ad 545/6, the former due to the Persian sack and the latter because of the plague. Lastly there is the resettlement of Romans from Antioch into Persia.</p><p>&nbsp; </p><p>Taking all this information together it seems most probably that the coins would be struck under Persian rule or at least for dealing with Persians. It would explain why the current monarch was not placed on the coin.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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