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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Justin Lee, post: 3630576, member: 87404&quot;]I recently acquired a new coin, what one could assume to be an average Alexandrian tetradrachm, with an interesting feature that is unique in Roman Provincial coins of Egypt: an officina mark in the exergue. An officina mark, or even mint mark (like the later ALE, for example), typically does not appear on Alexandrian provincial coinage prior to it&#039;s being subsumed into the Roman Empire during the tetrarchy, becoming an official imperial mint (though, there are occasionally some imperial designs that were minted in Alexandria throughout the duration of the empire).</p><p><br /></p><p><b>The Beginning of the Tetrarchy...</b> After the death of Carus and Numerian, Diocletian was proclaimed emperor in 284 AD. He initially ruled individually until 286 AD when he appointed Maximianus as Augustus, as a co-ruler. This divided the empire in two, the West and the East. In 293, the co-Augusti went one step further choosing and appointing two Caesars to rule under or alongside each of them: Diocletian choosing Galerius as his successor and Maximianus choosing Constantius I Chlorus as his successor.&nbsp; It is in this moment that the &quot;Tetrarchy&quot; (or &quot;rule of four&quot;) began.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was then in 294 AD that you start to see an increase in imperial coins minted in Alexandria. This would begin to harken the end of the provincial coinage and denomination (tets, obols, drachms, etc) system in Egypt replacing it within a couple years with the official minting of imperial designs and adherence to the imperial denomination standards (folles, etc).</p><p><br /></p><p>Eventually, in May 305 AD Diocletian and Maximianus &quot;retired&quot; from rule allowing their two Caesars to advance to Ausgusti and select two new Caesars: Severus and Maximinus Daia.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Ok, back to this coin... </b>fascinatingly, at this important transition from 2 co-emperors to the 4 of the tetrarchy, between ~291 AD and ~295 AD the provincial mints in Alexandria placed officina marks in the exergue of their coins. These marks were not long lived: officina marks were only used during years 8-10 of Diocletian, 7-9 of Maximianus and 1-2 of Galerius and Constantius I.&nbsp; And Emmett identifies that, like many earlier and later imperial mints, certain officina were assigned certain emperors (or family members). On p.xvii of his book <i>Alexandrian Coins</i>, he proposed Die Carver 1 for officina A (Diocletian, Constantius I) and officina B (Maximianus, Galerius) and Die Carver 2 for officina G and * (Maximianus, Galerius) and officina D (Diocletian, Constantius I).</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://iomegacollectionhome.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/collagemaker_20190727_181017566.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><b>Maximianus, Ruled 286-305 AD (First Reign)</b></p><p><b>AE Tetradrachm, Egypt, Alexandria</b></p><p><b>Struck Year 7, 291/292 AD</b></p><p><b>Obverse</b>: ΜΑΞΙΜΙΑΝΟC CЄΒ, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right.</p><p><b>Reverse</b>: Hercules standing facing, head left, leaning on club with right hand, apples of the Hesperides in left hand, lion&#039;s skin over left arm, date L-Z (year 7 = 291/292 AD) across fields, B in exergue (officina).</p><p><b>References</b>: Emmett 4131, Milne 5027 var, Curtis 2086 var</p><p><b>Size</b>: 19mm, 8.2g</p><p><br /></p><p>The reverse of this coin is a die match with Zach &quot;Beast&quot; Beasley&#039;s <a href="https://www.beastcoins.com/RomanProvincial/Egypt-Alexandria/Egypt-Alexandria.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.beastcoins.com/RomanProvincial/Egypt-Alexandria/Egypt-Alexandria.htm" rel="nofollow">similar coin</a> below (not the obverse, though):</p><p><img src="https://www.beastcoins.com/RomanProvincial/Egypt-Alexandria/Emmett4131-Year7-OfficinaB.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>This representation of Hercules is slightly different than others of similar year (Z) and the year before (S) with a more muscular (bulge-y?) physique and the holding of many apples rather than just one (<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/apples.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/apples.html" rel="nofollow">golden apples of Hesperides, representing his 11th Labor</a>).</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is an example of a year 6 (L-S) for comparison that was previously part of my collection and is now a part of TIF&#039;s:</p><p><img src="https://media.biddr.ch/media/img/auction_lots/407/398063.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d love to see if any of you have other Alexandrian tets with officina marks in exergue of Max, Dio, or the two Caesars![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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