Byzantine Weights, circa 350-400. Weight of 1 Nomisma (Bronze, 18 mm, 4.34 g, 12 h), an irregularly shaped coin weight for a solidus made from a follis of Maximinus II (310-313). IMP C GAL VAL M[AXIMINVS P F AVG] Laureate head of Maximinus II to right.
Rev. [SOLE INVI]CTO / ANT Sol standing front, head to left, in quadriga galloping left, raising his right hand and holding globus in his left; below the horses, Δ. RIC 142. A highly interesting piece with attractive earthen highlights. Very fine.
From an interesting European collection of Byzantine coin & commercial weights.
Cutting worn old coins down to coin weights was a rather common practice in the 4th-7th centuries (see Pera 633-659), but these pieces were usually defaced and heavily altered to withdraw them from circulation, leaving the undertypes often unidentifiable. This unusually attractive example, however, is a very interesting exception to the rule: it was made from a little worn follis of Maximinus II, one of the last imperial persecutors of Christians, and bears a decidedly pagan reverse, both of which indicates that it was cut down to a solidus weight somewhen in the second half of the 4th century at the latest, before Christianity became the predominant religion throughout the empire.
