The great city of Antioch was the 3rd-largest city in the Roman world, after Rome and Alexandria. It was properly known as Antiochia ad Orontem (Αντιόχεια η επί Ορόντου), referring to its location on the Orontes river, to distinguish itself from the 15 other cities of that name founded by Seleucus I in honor of his father, Antiochus.

In the first Tetrarchy, Antioch found itself in Diocletian's sphere of control. As such, the coinage was extremely orthodox, striking only the GENIO POPVLI ROMANI type of follis until Diocletian's abdication. The other characteristic of the Antioch mint was the sheer quantity of issues and coinage. Vast quantities of coinage were struck to support the wars against Persia that Galerius ultimately concluded with great success in 298.

Maximinus introduced more typographic variety when he took control of the mint in 305. Like the other eastern mints, he continued to strike coins with the Genius reverse, but with GENIO CAESARIS and GENIO IMPERATORIS legends, celebrating the Genius of the emperors personally, rather than the Roman people generally. Later issues were more specifically focused on his political programmes, featuring elaborate bust types and active military and pagan themes — perhaps in reaction to Constantine's increasing tolerance of Christianity in the western part of the empire.

After the death of Galerius in 311, Sol was prominently featured on the coinage in a variety of guises, along with Hercules to a lesser extent. During this time, Maximinus was gearing up for war with Licinius, and so these types may have been intended to distinguish his coinage from the Jupiter types of Licinius.

For map image only:

This material originated on the Interactive Ancient Mediterranean Web site (http://iam.classics.unc.edu). It has been copied, reused or redistributed under the terms of IAM's fair use policy. Copyright 1998, Interactive Ancient Mediterranean.