MAXIMINUS II Daia (308-313 AD) Civic Christian Persecution Issue

MAXIMINUS II Daia (308-313 AD) Civic Christian Persecution Issue.

Obverse : GENIO ANTIOCHENI, Tyche seated facing, river-god Orontes swimming below.

Reverse : APOLLONI SANCTO, Apollo standing left, holding patera and lyre; H in right field, SMA in exergue.

1,43 g.

Ref : McAlee 170i

An active campaign of persecution against local Christians by Maximinus II reached its height during 310-313 the eastern cities in Nicomedia, Antioch, and Alexandria. Christians were subject to confiscation of land and property, and expelled from the cities; Churches were closed and ransacked.

These three major mint cities struck a series of small bronzes honoring the old Greco-Roman gods – Jupiter, Apollo, Tyche, and Serapis among them. The persecutions subsided in AD 313 as a result of the Edict of Milan, jointly issued by Constantine and Licinius – the senior emperors – which proclaimed a policy of religious freedom, and returned confiscated property to the Christians.