Roman Constantinian AD 330-340 AE3/4 NUMMUS NGC MS Constantinopolis/Victory (1)

Roman Empire



REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINIAN AD 330-340



AE3/4 BI NUMMUS (FOLLIS)

GRADED NGC MS



OBVERSE: helmeted, mantled bust of Roma left.



REVERSE: CONSTANTINOPOLIS / GOD VICTORY.



CONSTANTINOPOLI, Constantinopolis helmeted,

laureate bust left, holding scepter over shoulder.



Victory (Nike) standing left, stepping on galley prow, cradling scepter and

resting hand on shield;

This coin was issued by Constantine the

Great to commemorate the founding of the city of Constantinopolis.

The obverse of the coin features a helmeted

goddess while the reverse features a Guardian Angel

By circa 330 A.D., Constantine the Great

completed his new capital for the Roman empire and called it Constantinople

after himself, originally the ancient Greek city named Byzantium. Constantinople

lay in a strategically important location and could be considered the

continuation of the Roman empire in the east until about 1453 A.D. when it fell

to the Ottoman Turks. For this momentous occasion, he issued two coin types

commemorating this event, with one celebrating Rome and the other

Constantinople. The type that commemorated Rome had the personification of Rome,

Roma with the inscription VRBS ROMA and the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus

on the reverse suckling the mythical she-wolf. The type that commemorated

Constantinople had the personification of Constantinople on the obverse and

Victory on a galley sailing with a shield. This was a great way for Constantine

the Great to pay homage to both Rome and Constantinople as now the Roman empire

had two official capitals.



Constantinopolis, built on the site of the ancient Byzantium by Constantine the

Great, who called it after his own name and made it the capital of the Roman

empire. It was solemnly consecrated A.D. 330. It was built in imitation of Rome.

Thus it covered 7 hills, was divided into 14 regiones, and was adorned with

various buildings in imitation of the capital of the Western world. Its extreme

length was about 3 Roman miles ; and its walls included eventually a

circumference of 13 or 14 Roman miles. It continued the capital of the Roman

empire in the east until its capture by the Turks in 1453.



Constantine I 'The Great' - Roman Emperor: 307-337 A.D.



Caesar (Recognized): 306-309 A.D. | Filius Augustorum (Recognized): 309-310 A.D.

| Augustus (Self-Proclaimed): 307-310 A.D. | Augustus (Recognized): 310-337 A.D.



| Son of Constantius I 'Chlorus' and Helena | Step-son of Theodora | Husband of

Minervina and Fausta | Father (by Minervina) of Crispus and (by Fausta) of

Constantine II, Constantius II, Constans, Constantina (wife of Hanniballianus &

Constantius Gallus) and Helena the Younger (wife of Julian II) | Son-in-law of

Maximian and Eutropia | Brother-in-law of Maxentius | Half-brother of Constantia

(w. of Licinius I) | Half-uncle of Delmatius, Hanniballianus, Constantius

Gallus, Julian II, Licinius II and Nepotian | Grandfather of Constantia (wife of

Gratian)



Constantine the Great (Latin: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus;

27 February c. 272 AD - 22 May 337 AD), also known as Constantine I or Saint

Constantine (in the Orthodox Church as Saint Constantine the Great,

Equal-to-the-Apostles), was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine 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 the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In 305, Constantius was

raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was

recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia (Britain). Acclaimed as

emperor by the army at Eboracum (modern-day York) after his father's death in

306 AD, Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against the

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

civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was

introduced to combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and

European currencies for more than a thousand years. The first Roman emperor to

claim conversion to Christianity, Constantine played an influential role in the

proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which decreed tolerance for

Christianity in the empire. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, at

which the Nicene Creed was professed by Christians. 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). It would later become the capital of the

Empire for over one thousand years; for which reason the later Eastern Empire

would come to be known as the Byzantine Empire. His more immediate political

legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletian's

tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished

during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign. The medieval

church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a

prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and

identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of

his reign due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics

portrayed him as a tyrant. Trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to

balance the extremes of previous scholarship.



Constantine is a significant figure in the history of Christianity. The Church

of the Holy Sepulchre, built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus' tomb

in Jerusalem, became the holiest place in Christendom. The Papal claim to

temporal power in the High Middle Ages was based on the supposed Donation of

Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox, Byzantine

Catholics, and Anglicans.

 

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