Constantine I, 307/310-337. Solidus (Gold, 20 mm, 4.40 g, 1 h), Sirmium, 320. CONSTANT-INVS P F AVG Laureate head of Constantine I to right. Rev. VICTORIB AVGG ET CAESS NN / SIRM Victory seated right on shield and cuirass, inscribing VOT / XX in two lines on shield set on her left knee; to right, trophy and captive seated right, in mourning attitude, head turned back to left. Alföldi 631. Depeyrot 2/7. RIC 10. Very rare and of great historical interest. Fresh and attractive, a beautiful piece. Light scratches, otherwise, extremely fine.


This very rare solidus of Constantine I was most likely struck to mark the celebration of his quindecennalia on 25 July 320. At that time the emperor was residing in Sirmium, where earlier in the year he had also assumed his sixth consulship. Meanwhile, his son Crispus, with his generals, kept watch over the Rhine frontier from Treveri. The coin must be viewed against the backdrop of Constantine’s uneasy relationship with Licinius I. Sirmium, situated on the great military road linking Italy with the Danubian provinces and Asia Minor, offered Constantine both a strategic vantage point from which to monitor his rival’s activities and a position from which reinforcements could be quickly drawn from the West.

The reverse of the aureus proclaims imperial victory with its depiction of Victoria and a trophy flanked by a captive. Strikingly, the reverse legend employs the plural - VICTORIB AVGG ET CAESS NN (Victoribus Augustorum et Caesarum Nostrorum = 'to the victors, our Augusti and Caesares') - which acknowledges Licinius and echoes the official peace that still held between the rivals. Yet on slightly later issues this plural is abandoned: we find instead VIRTVS AVG ET CAESS NN (RIC 28) and VICTORIA AVG ET CAESS NN (RIC 35). The omission of the plural reveals how tensions had escalated to the point where Constantine deliberately erased any reference to his eastern co-Augustus from his coinage.