★ NGC Graded Choice AU★ 5/5 - 5/5 ★

Diocletian AV Aureus. Consular issue. Cyzicus, AD 287. DIOCLETIANVS AVGVSTVS, laureate head right / COS III, Diocletian, laureate and in military attire, on horseback to right, raising right hand in salutation and holding sceptre and reins in left. RIC 287; Depeyrot 7/2; Calicó 4445; Biaggi 1702. 5.22g, 20mm, 7h.

Good Extremely Fine. Previously NGC graded Choice AU★ 5/5 - 5/5 (2079063-015). Very Rare.

Acquired from Editions V. Gadoury, Monaco.

Though not chiefly remembered as a military figure in the same manner as the general-emperor Probus, Diocletian’s reign is nonetheless marked for having secured the empire’s borders and purged it internally of all threats to his power. Diocletian well understood the dangers presented to the empire by the concentration of supreme power in one individual; the assassinations of Aurelian and Probus had amply demonstrated this in the preceding years. The internal and external threats to the empire were too many for one man to deal with, and thus in 285 Diocletian made his fellow-officer Maximian co-emperor with the rank of Caesar. Maximian would be promoted the following year to Augustus, and shortly thereafter formally divided the empire into a diarchy, giving Maximian responsibility for the western territories. In 287 Maximian and Diocletian assumed the consulship together, the latter for the third time, which he celebrated in his capital of Nicomedia and commemorated with this issue. The diarchy established in 286 would soon be made a tetrarchy, to better distribute the responsibilities and military commands required.