AE Follis, A.D. 308-310, Rome, 23mm, 4.60g, 0°, RIC VI 210.
Obv: IMP C MAXENTIVS P F AVG. Laureate head right.
Rev: CONSERV VRB SVAE. Temple with six columns, Roma seated within, holding globe and scepter; RBP in ex.
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Maxentius' was born around 278, the son of the emperor Maximian and his wife Eutropia. In 305, Diocletian and Maximian resigned, and the former caesars Constantius and Galerius became Augusti. Although Constantine and Maxentius, the two sons of emperors were available, they were left out from the new tetrarchy, and Severus and Maximinus Daia were appointed Caesars. When Constantius died in 306, his son Constantine was crowned emperor on July 25 and subsequently accepted by Galerius into the tetrarchy as Caesar. This set the precedent for Maxentius' accession and in the aftermath of rioting in Rome, he was publicly acclaimed emperor on October 28, 306 and recognized as such in central and southern Italy, the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, and the African provinces.

His early support as usurper gradually dissolved into protest and the Christians of Italy began to feel that Constantine was more sympathetic to their plight. In the summer of 311, Maxentius declared war on Constantine and began to mobilize his armies. Constantine, in an attempt to prevent Maxentius from forming a hostile alliance with Licinius, forged his own alliance with the man over the winter of 311–12 by offering to him his sister Constantia in marriage. Maximinus considered Constantine's arrangement with Licinius an affront to his authority and in response arranged his own alliance with Maxentius. The two alliances prepared for war.

The armies of Maxentius and Constantine met north of Rome, some distance outside the walls, beyond the Tiber river on the Via Flaminia. Christian tradition, especially Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea, claims that Constantine fought under the labarum in that battle, revealed to him in a dream. Of the battle itself, not much is known – Constantine's forces defeated Maxentius's troops, who retreated to the Tiber, and in the chaos of the fleeing army trying to cross the river, Maxentius fell into the water and drowned. His body was found the next day and paraded through the city, and later sent to Africa, as a sign that he had surely perished.