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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2108271, member: 19463&quot;]The last coin is one of the two common types we call the Anonymous Pagan series struck at Antioch about 311 AD. It shows Jupiter and Victory. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]397925[/ATTACH] </p><p>This is the other common one.</p><p>Anonymous Pagan Issue, AE4, Antioch mint, c.310 AD</p><p style="text-align: left"><img src="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/vocpag.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>These <b>Anonymous</b>coins show a pagan god on each side (two reverse types, if you please). They are often called 1/4 nummus pieces but their exact place in the scheme is not known. The obvious question is why they were issued. Numismatists of the 19th century assigned these coins to the Pagan Revival under Julian II (360-363 AD) but this is now realized to be incorrect and the coins are assigned to the time of the Great Persecution under Galerius and Maximinus II. Citizens at that time were required to perform a sacrifice to prove their piety to the state. Christians considered this act sacrilegious and refused preferring to suffer death or imprisonment. I see a distinct possibility that these coins served some role in that sacrifice. Perhaps the requirement was as simple as throwing a sacred coin of minimal value in the offering plate at a temple. Perhaps this is not a coin at all but a receipt of having complied with the requirement. This is a matter needing study. The obverse of our example shows Fortune (Tyche) of Antioch with swimmer (River Orontes) at her feet. This copies the bronze statue by Eutychides of Sicyon which was commissioned by Seleucus I when the city was founded. The reverse shows Apollo holding his lyre. The figure is a copy of the massive acrolithic statue of Apollo by Bryaxis that stood in the temple at Antioch. Ancient descriptions of these statues (both now lost) enable us to be certain of the identifications. The mintmark SMA expands to <b>Sacra Moneta</b> (Sacred Money) of Antioch. In the field is the additive numeral of officina 9 (5+4) as seen on our previous page. This use in itself suggests the error of the attribution to Julian since coins of his period used theta for officina 9. The timing of the confusion on the date of these coins led to them being omitted from RIC. When Volume VI was written, many people attributed them to Julian II who is in Volume VIII but when Volume VIII came out, they had been &#039;moved&#039; to the Volume VI period so they are not in RIC. Pity, they are very interesting coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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