Maximian

2/7/2020                                                                                    link back up to main Chapter 262 Coins

end of Roman Empire

Sometimes I like to look back on history. What helps me do that is through my coin collecting hobby. I'd bought a cheap Roman coin a few years back and just got around to cleaning and researching it. More below. The back of my coin is linked to this Hadrian's Wall in England. It served several purposes over it's several century life under the Romans. It served as a northern border between the Roman Empire and the unruly local tribes up through Scotland. It resulted in the creation of local villages and a whole social culture over the years. It is mostly in a decayed state now only serving as a tourist attraction. Other Surprising facts of Hadrian's Wall.

IMP CM A MAXIMIANUS P F AUG  /  VOT XX

Maximian reigned in the western Roman empire as co-emperor with Diocletian starting in 286. He was part of a four way rule of the Empire until 310 when he was ordered to kill himself by his stepson Constantine the Great who had just become a co-emperor after a battle near Hadrian's Wall. It's complicated. All the names, dates, changing political boundaries, etc, etc. I'm simplifying just to understand in my own head. This video confirms my coin was minted in Thessolina northern Greece.

The XX refers to the Twentieth Roman Legion of soldiers. Legio XX Valeria Victrix was the title of a group of some 3000 or more infantry soldiers that originated way back to the time of Julius Caesar Augustus and ended in the time of Maximian. The group fought all around Europe especially on the eastern front in Germany but notably helped build Hadrians Wall in northern England. They dissolved about the same time the wall was abandoned as the Roman Empire began to fall apart. There don't seem to be too many later references to the Twentieth Legion.

There is a thought that the XX Legion may have dissolved after Constantius I Chlorus recaptured Londinium in 296. This nice gold medallion telling the story is a museum piece. It was found by accident in a clay pot in the ground in 1922. Wow, I'd like to have one of these someday. I believe that until this 20th century discovery it was unknown that there was ever a coin commemorating the event.

Constantius first had to kill another would be Roman saboteur.

Watch as US Soldiers kill 50,000 Roman soldiers (very popular video). The ancient world was chock full of unspeakable abhorrent violence. A Roman "triumph" would not qualify unless you had slaughtered more than 5,000 barbarians.

A shout out to some of those ancient historians who so well documented the history of their Greek and Roman Empires Herodotus and Livy . Without them history would be lacking. I like to think l inherited some of their genes.

I also have coins of Constans and Constantine

Thessalonica      Thessaloniki Mint

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