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Alexandria, follis, Galerius, Genius Imperatoris | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
5.6.2021
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Ancient & Medieval Coins.Can anyone help me with an identification of this coin please? |
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Rome, 5.6.2021
Dear,below I report the significant elements regarding the coin shown in the figure: Follis1, mint of Alexandria, late 308-310 d. C., RIC VI 101a (pag. 678), rarity index "C" Summary
description: The search on the web of coins of the type of figure gave rise to the following results:
Best regards. --------------------------
(2) IMP C GAL VAL MAXIMIANVS P F AVG (IMPerator Caesar GALerius VALerius MAXIMIANVS Pius Felix AVGustus). On May 1, 305, Diocletian, having reached the twentieth year of power, had withdrawn from public life, as previously established and had demanded the same from Maximianus. With their departure, the two Augusti took on the purely honorary title of "Seniores Augusti, felicissimi et beatissimi". Galerius and Constantius were promoted to Augusti, respectively of the East and of the West. But above all Galerius was the winner. In fact, even if Constantius, as Augustus senior, possessed the supreme legislative power, as had been that of Diocletian before him, it was Galerius who chose, among men certainly loyal to him, the new Caesars in the persons of Flavius Valerius Severus (Caesar of the West) and Valerius Maximinus Daia, his nephew (Caesar of the East). This displeased the Westerners: Maximianus, because he was forced to retire prematurely, his son Maxentius and Constantius's son, Constantinus, because they were cut off from the line of succession. But it was the death, in 306, of Constantius Chlorus, the senior Augustus of the West, to reopen the chapter of the struggles for succession by those aspiring tetrarchs who, despite having a military force that supported them and wanted them Caesars or Augusti, had not been recognized for the role to which they aspired. The situation was further complicated by the execution of Severus decided by Maxentius. Galerius, now Augustus senior, with the Carnuntum conference in the autumn of 308, tried to compromise with the various suitors but the situation had reached the point that, at a given moment, four legitimate Augustus existed in the empire, Galerius, Constantinus, Licinius and Maximinus Daia and an illegal Caesar in Rome, Maxentius. (3) GENIO IMP-ERATORIS (to the emperor's Genius). RIC reports (page 110) that "The everyday aes of the First Tetrarchy, in contrast to the varying flood of types of the pre-tetrarchic antoniniani, thus kept two over-riding ideas before the ordinary man, civilian or soldier, namely, the singleness of romanitas and the stability of the currency which he chiefly used. After 305, however, and particularly from 307, when the tetrarchic system was under fatal strain, the concept of Genius changed. Genio Populi Romani, by now one among a number of aes types, was used to indicate legitimacy of association among imperial partners; and it was in this sense that the west assigned the type to Herculius after his resumption of power. The new usage was not illogical, for the unity of the empire might be said to depend on the propriety with which its rulers were mutually accepted. There was, moreover, another shift of significance in the east, Genius Populi Romani gave way to the Genius of the rulers themselves, expressed as Augusti, Caesaris or Imperatoris. Rivalry and tension were now emphasizing the personality of the rulers at the expense of unity among the ruled. Use of a Genius type, however, still connoted a wish to recognize legitimacy of association, and thus of succession, within the tetrarchic dynasty; and it is notable that Maxentius' fundamental nonconformity is emphasized by his total avoidance of Genius in any form". The coin in the figure is in a certain way the mirror of that political moment if it is true that the same type of reverse was used by the Alexandria mint to strike coins in the name of the following characters:
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