Obverse. Photo © FORVM ANCIENT COINS
  • 1 Follis 313-314 AD, RIC# VII 008, Roman Empire, Constantine the Great
  • 1 Follis 313-314 AD, RIC# VII 008, Roman Empire, Constantine the Great
Description

Constantine the Great (Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus), also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was a Roman Emperor of Illyrian-Greek origin from 306 to 337 AD. He was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman Army officer, and his consort Helena. His father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west, in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under Emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In 305, Constantius raised himself to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia (Britain). Constantine was acclaimed as emperor by the army at Eboracum (modern-day York) after his father's death in 306 AD, and he emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against Emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of both west and east by 324 AD.

As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen the empire. The government was restructured, and the civil and military authorities were separated. A new gold coin was introduced to combat inflation known as the solidus. It became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years.

Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, and he played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared religious tolerance for Christianity in the Roman empire. In military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians—even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century.

The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself (the laudatory epithet of "New Rome" came later, and was never an official title).

Obverse

Constantine the Great, laureate, cuirassed bust right.

IMP CONSTANTINVS P F AVG (Imperator Constantinus Pius Felix Augustas)

IMP CONSTANTINVS P F AVG

Reverse

Sol radiate standing left, chlamys across left shoulder, right hand raised, and holding globe in left. Star in the left field.

Sol was the solar deity in Ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult re-appear with the arrival in Rome of the Syrian Sol Invictus, perhaps under the influence of the Mithraic mysteries. Recent publications have challenged the notion of two different sun gods in Rome, pointing to the abundant evidence for the continuity of the cult of Sol, and the lack of any clear differentiation - either in name or depiction - between the "early" and "late" Roman sun god.

SOLI INVICTO COMITI (To the invincible Sun [God], companion of the Emperor)
Mintmark PT for Ticinum

SOLI INVI-C-TO COMITI
PT

Edge -
Characteristics
Material Bronze
Weight 2.7 g
Diameter 19 mm
Thickness -
Shape round
Alignment -
Mint
Ticinum Mint

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