Constantine I, 307/310-337. Follis (?) (Bronze, 20 mm, 3.07 g, 6 h), Constantinopolis, 333-337. CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG Rosette-diademed head of Constantine I to right, with slight drapery on his left shoulder . Rev. S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI / CONSA Victory standing front, head to left, holding wreath in her right hand and palm frond in her left. Ramskold, Constantine's SPES PVBLIC coins (2020), p. 258, fig. 26B (this coin). RIC -. Apparently unique and of great historical interest. Minor traces of corrosion, otherwise, very fine.


This exceptional type is not known from any other mints and was clearly created for Constantinople alone. Constantine's portrait includes a proper rosette diadem, and locks of hair flowing onto the neck. As shown by Ramskold (Constantine's SPES PVBLIC coins [2020a]), this indicates a date from 333 onwards. The reverse, at any rate, has a normal mint mark and is finely executed. A clue to this coin's date comes from another unique coin, from the Failmezger collection (Ramskold, Constantine's SPES PVBLIC coins (2020a), fig. 26C). That coin shows Constantius Caesar on the obverse and the reverse has the legend 'S P Q R OPTIMO CAESARI' around the prince on horseback, and the mint mark 'CONS' (an obliterated officina letter in the field cannot be excluded).

What makes these two coins, which certainly belong to the same emission, especially noteworthy is that they hark back to Trajan (98-117), the best of all Roman emperors according to the senatorial historiogaphy, and a role model for many later emperors. This is not only apparent in the use of the familiar S P Q R OPTIMO PRINCIPI (or CAESARI) formula, which was famously bestowed upon Trajan in 100, but also in the meticulous copying of the reverse types from Trajan's coinage (see f.e. Woytek 270 and 394). We do know that Constantine worked to establish a senate in his new foundation of Constantinople, and perhaps this emission was connected to such efforts. It is, in any case, a great testimony to Constantine's attempts to link himself and his newly founded capital with Rome's glorious past - and who better to do this than with the optimus princeps, the finest of all emperors, Trajan?