Phocas, 602-610, Follis (with Leontia)

Phocas, follis (40 nummi), AE, reign AD 602-610, Antioch (Theoupolis) mint, regnal year III (AD 604/605), 12.55 g, 31 mm. Obverse with legend D N FOCANE PE AV, confronted busts of Phocas and Empress Leontia, both crowned and draped, with cross between. Reverse with large M, ANNO to left and III to right, mintmark AN in exergue. Struck on a thick bronze flan typical of the Antioch issues of the period. Reference: Sear Byzantine 671.

Phocas came to power in AD 602 after the overthrow of Maurice, and his reign coincided with severe military and administrative instability, including renewed conflict with Sasanian Persia and unrest across the eastern provinces. Bronze folles such as this, dated by regnal year and naming the Antioch (Theoupolis) mint through its exergual mark, document the continuation of urban minting in Syria immediately before the region’s further disruption in the early 7th century and the subsequent dynastic change to Heraclius in AD 610.