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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 14961325, member: 128351&quot;]Yes it was. After all, Antioch has been the capital of the Near-East (capital of the Seleucid Kingdom, after this of the Roman Province of Syria) for a very long period. From the 1st to the 4th c. Antioch was the rear base of the Roman troops at war against the Parthians and later the Sassanid Persians. From Nero in the 1st to Trajan Decius in the mid-3rd c. (with an exception under Caracalla and Macrinus) its mint was the only one in the region that issued silver coins (tetradrachms) in massive quantities and on a regular basis to pay troops in Orient - and it was not a small army. Under Aurelian and Vabalathus (c. 270-272) this Antioch mint was divided in 8 officinas, numbered Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Є, S, Ζ and Η as we can see on antoniniani with a Vabalathus and an Aurelian bust. In the 4th c. this mint provided coins to the whole Middle east.</p><p><br /></p><p>In Hegra (Saudi Arabia, near al-Ula) the Roman coins of the 1st to the 4th c. AD that were found in the archaeological digs and surveys (and could be attributed) are mostly from the Antioch mint : 40 to 50% of the 1st to mid 3rd c. coins, 70% of the Late Roman coins (antoniniani, LRB).</p><p><br /></p><p>The mint of Antioch has a very long history of more than 1500 years from Antiochus I (BC 281-261) to Bohemond V (AD 1233-1251): Hellenistic, Early and Late Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Seljukid and Crusader. After Baybars took the city in 1268, Antioch (in Arabic Antakiyya) declined quickly while neighbouring Aleppo was becoming the regional trade centre, and was only a small town in the 19th c. I don&#039;t know if there were any coins minted there under the Mamluk and the Ottomans. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1532379[/ATTACH] </p><p>One of the last coins minted in Antioch:</p><p>Bohemond III (1149-1201) prince of Antioch. Billon denier, Antioch</p><p>Obv.: + BOAMVNDVS, bust left wearing hauberk and cross-marked nasal helmet, between crescent and star</p><p>Rev.: + ANTIOCHIA, large cross with crescent in 2nd quarter[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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