Decius, AD 249-251, Tetradrachm

Decius, Tetradrachm, AR, AD 249–251, 9.70 g, 26 mm.

Antioch (Syria), struck AD 249–251. ΑΥΤ Κ Γ ΜΕ ΚΥ ΤΡΑΙΑΝΟϹ ΔΕΚΙΟϹ ϹΕΒ; radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind; four pellets below the bust at left indicating officina 4. ΔΗΜΑΡΧ ΕΞΟΥϹΙΑϹ; S C; eagle standing right on palm branch, wings spread, wreath in beak. Struck on the Antiochene tetradrachm module with Greek legends and officina control marks; S C present in the field as standard for this series. RPC IX 1739; RPC Online lists three examples.

This Antiochene tetradrachm belongs to the long-running Syrian series that supplied silver coinage to the eastern provinces, retaining Greek legends and the eagle type under successive emperors. The officina pellet marks document the workshop organization of the mint, while the S C reflects the formal Roman sanction of this provincial silver issue. Struck during Decius’s short reign, the type circulated amid the Third-Century military and fiscal pressures in the East, contemporaneous with his empire-wide sacrificial edict and his death in the Gothic campaigns of AD 251.