Question about Constantine Half-Nummus

I have some questions about two coins of Constantine I ("the Great"):


Rome mint, A.D. 312-313
RIC 360
Obv: FL VAL CONSTANTINVS AVG
Rev: VIRT EXE-RCIT GALL - Virtus, standing, looking right, holding parazonium and leaning on reversed spear
RT in exergue; X in left field, VI in right
20 x 18 mm, 2.6 g.


Rome mint, A.D. 312-313
RIC 356
Obv: FL VAL CONSTANTINVS AVG
Rev: PACI P-ERPET - Pax, standing facing, head left, holding branch and standard
RQ in exergue; XII in left field
19 x 16 mm, 2.0 g.

Both were minted only in Rome, shortly after Constantine defeated Maxentius and marched into the city. It seems they are intended to celebrate his Victory. Here are my questions:

1) Why the radiate bust on the first coin? True, Constantine claimed Sol as his personal protector, but this, to my knowledge, is the only time he appears in a radiate bust until A.D. 320. Both coins are significantly smaller than the SOLI INVICTO bronzes of the time. If the radiate bust is meant to denote a half-nummus, why does the second coin have a laurate bust?

2) Half nummi are pretty rare during this time. Were they even meant to circulate, or were they strictly donatives?

3) What is the meaning of the X-VI and the XII on the reverses of the two coins?

4) If they weren't intended for general circulation, is it possible that the top coin, which celebrates the manly virtue of the troops from Gaul, was intended to be given to the troops who supported Constantine during his conquest of Rome? Perhaps the lower coin, somewhat more common than the upper, was intended as a gift to the Roman people whose support Constantine was anxious to secure?

I'd be interested in hearing any ideas or theories people might have about these two interesting coins.

 

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I have asked hose questions and have no answers. Is it possible both are XV? The XII almost looks like there is a connection below it. Either way, I have no idea of a meaning. There are many radiates from this general priod that I can't explain.

 

I have a page about these coins--

http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/fractions/

 

I went back and checked my coins. I actually have two copies of each. In both cases the PACI were noticeably smaller than the VIRTVS. I think your designation of the VIRTVS as a 2/3 nummus and the PACI as a 1/2 nummus makes sense, and the reverse numbers XII for the PACI and XVI for the VIRTVS support this interpretation (See Victor's page, linked above, for more specifics.) The VIRTVS could conceivable be mistaken for a regular nummus based on its size. Thus, the radiate crown to distinguish it. The PACI is so much smaller from the GENIO and SOLI coins of the period that it is unlikely to be confusing, so there is no need for a different type of crown.

But my other question remains: do you think these coins were ever intended for regular circulation? There were a couple of other reduced issues around this time at other mints:


Treveri (Trier) mint, A.D. 307-308
1/4 nummus?
RIC 791
Obv: IMP CONSTANTINVS P F AVG
Rev: VOT/X/AVG/N, within wreath
No mint mark
13 mm, 0.8 g.
(Sorry, my only example)

Treveri (Trier) mint, A.D. 310-311
1/2 nummus?
RIC 899
Obv: CONSTANTINVS AVG
Rev: SOL IN-VICTO - Sol holding globe; right hand raised
PTR in exergue
18 mm, 1.4 g.

They are all scarce to rare. What was their purpose?

 

Complete opinion on my part, but I see many of these as donatives. Many show propaganda relating to Constantine and his attempt to create peace in the empire which may also relate to the acceptance of Christianity. Also opinion, but such small denominations seem useless unless for tossing them out to the masses for propaganda.


Constantine I
Rome mint
313 AD
AE 1/4 Follis
Obvs: IMP CONSTANTINVS PF AVG, Bare head facing right.
Revs: SAPIENTIA PRINCIPIS, Owl standing left on altar, shield, spear and helmet around. RT
14mm, 1.20g


Constantine I
312 to 313 AD
Mint: Rome
Billon Half-Nummus
Obvs: FL VAL CONSTANTINVS AVG
Revs: PACI PERPET, Pax with branch and standard. XII to left. RS in ex
17mm, 1.8g

Perhaps they are rare due to not being of high value and therefore discarded?

 

Victor, your page is an excellent summery of David Wigg's article on the OP types. Thanks for writing it.

 

If you look at the page I linked to, you can see from Diocletian's Edict of Prices, that the Romans would have frequently needed small denominations.

Thank you, I felt it was important to get that article up.

 

No bronze coins were issued for the sole purpose of general circulation. The Roman government did not mint coins for the people to use; but instead minted for fiscal considerations. This is in contrast to modern practices. The Roman mints produced coins in relation to fiscal obligations, immediacy and extent of military obligations and political considerations. These coins then trickled down to general circulation. So a large proportion of coinage struck by Roman mints was going to go to the military.

This is a reason why there are periods when many unofficial coins are minted. Following a monetary reform, it would have taken some time before sufficient quantities of official coinage could have passed down. The period around A.D. 318, with the epidemic copying of VLPP, is a good example.

 

Constantine the great - 3x Glory of the Army
never paid much attention about these ini miny moo Byzantines, part of a lot
of Follis coins.

 

I have a couple from Constantine I (The Great) times:

Constantine I:


RI Constantine I Folles 306-337 CE Captives VOTA Banner


Helena Mother of Constantine I:


RI Helena mother Constantine AE Follis Securitas Nicomedia mint 325-326 CE 19mm 3-3g RIC-95 Sear 16619

As I get more into the Empresses of Rome, I find that their roles are MUCH more integral than when we just read about the Emperors!

Mommy Helena was very influential with her son...


BTW @Victor_Clark your write-up: "No bronze coins were issued for the sole purpose of general circulation. The Roman government did not mint coins for the people to use; but instead minted for fiscal considerations. This is in contrast to modern practices. The Roman mints produced coins in relation to fiscal obligations, immediacy and extent of military obligations and political considerations. These coins then trickled down to general circulation. So a large proportion of coinage struck by Roman mints was going to go to the military."

This REALLY brings Roman Coinage into clarity (in my mind...), even Roman Silver/Gold vs. Bronze and local issues. Thanks for that contribution.

 

This is a very confusing period of history and the best any of us can do is simply speculate (even well thought out studies are in the end just speculation). I would suggest that the scarcity and rarity of some of these issues would mean that they are either part of a failed reform or commemorative in nature.

But, Victor, I am not so certain on the thought that coins were minted only for fiscal consideration public use as a secondary purpose. Governments, large and small, ancient and modern, have large monetary debts. Transactions typically would be very large and under that idea there would be no need whatsoever for small change. To put it into a modern context the government pays $339 million per F22 jet. They wouldn't pay that in pennies. Assuming we still used high value coins, they would just mint $1 million coins. Or 5, 10, 100, etc. I do see what you are saying about the military, but I think its clear small change was only struck for general circulation.

 

Ken, trying to view the past in modern context is an often repeated mistake that does not apply to this situation at all. These fractionals were almost certainly minted as payment for the military and the Roman soldier was definitely not paid a great deal. So the majority of transactions that the government made would have been fairly small. These small payments were not just limited to the military, part of the fiscal obligations meant paying all government employees and workers. For example, the rebuilding of Constantinople by Constantine necessitated minting a lot of coins to pay the workers, which probably numbered in the thousands. Entirely new types were struck in Constantinople and these coins would have surely been paid out, in small amounts, to these people.

An example of the minting of coins for government interests is demonstrated by the location of mints. Note that in the 4th century the diocese of Hispania did not even have a mint. Using your argument, one might assume that people in Spain did not use coins, but from hoards and single coin finds, we know different. So no mints in Spain because there were no big government expenses in the area- like building new cities or paying lots of troops and coins would have slowly filtered in or been introduced through occasional payments for large orders of items like crops or cattle or whatever locals could produce for the government.

 

I dont think its a mistake at all. Economics remain very similar despite the passage of time, culture, place, etc. But, I suppose I should ask before I get too detailed, is your opinion that small change in this specific instance is military in nature or overall general practice through the centuries? Certainly this period of time is dominated by warrior emperors and it is no surprise that there is a plethora of military themes on the coins. But the general user of these coins is certainly not the military (as you point out yourself). I dont disagree that there was a flow down direction of cash disbursement. But the end user is the general public and the government would know that. Again, I have self-edited my response as I am not sure how specific your idea is to what issue, general or specific.

The location of mints means nothing to the discussion, really. We already know that coins were transported en masse all over the ancient world from various mints.

 

After reading your page, Victor (http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/fractions/), I've started wondering about this series:

Antioch mint, A.D. 321-323
RIC 34
Obv: IMP C FL VAL CONSTANTINVS P F AVG
Rev: IOVI CONS-ERVATORI - Jupiter, leaning on eagle-tipped scepter, holding Victory on globe; eagle with wreath at feet to right, captive to left
SMANTB in exergue; X over IIM (truncated) in right field
19 mm, 3.1 g.

Again, I assume that the radiate bust indicates a half nummus. This series was minted at Heraclea, Nicomedia, Cyzicus and Alexandra, which kind of undermines my conjecture that these fractions was not intended for general circulation.

The strangest thing about this series is that all the mints that issued this coin had the same strange field mark: an X over II and then what looks like an M chopped in half vertically. You can see it a little better in this version from Nicomedia:

RIC 43
19 mm, 2.7 g.

The size and weight is similar to most of the other bronze coins that came out after 317 A.D. So is it really a half nummus? I still think it's possible, since the value of a bronze coin had nothing to do with the value of the metal that it contained. Suppose, just for the sake of argument, it was intended as a fractional coin. If a nummus was valued at 25 denarii, this would be worth 12 1/2. Is it possible that the half M represents the numeral 0.5? If there is another explanation for this field mark, I'm not aware of it. Any ideas? Anyone know of an explanation?

 

"The last sign is clearly an episemon, epigraphically employed for S(emis) also." (RIC VII p. 12) Semis literally means half, and the semis coin was valued at half an as.

The IOVI coins were issued as part of a coin reform by Licinius in his territories (mints of Heraclea, Nicomedia, Cyzicus, Antioch, and Alexandria)and were reduced in value from 25 to 12 and a half. The coins were worth less because they had little or no silver. He struck these in the names of all the rulers but these coins had no value outside his territory.

The quote below references these coins with the field marks which reduced them to "half of a nummus"


DEBASEMENT OF NUMMUS IN EAST BY LICINIUS, 321-324.

"Dionysius to Apion, greeting. The divine Fortune of our masters has ordained that the Italian coinage be reduced to the half of a nummus. Make haste, therefore, to spend all the Italian silver that you have in purchases, on my behalf, of goods of every description at whatever prices you find them. For this purpose I have dispatched an officialis to you. But take notice that should you intend to indulge in any malpractices I shall not allows you to do so. I pray, my brother, that you may long be in health. (Verso) I received the letter from the officials on the eight of the month Pharmouthi."

Source: Letter in Archive of official Theophanes, c. 321 (P. Rylands IV. 607). Translation from L. C. West and A. C. Johnson, Currency in Roman Byzantine Egypt (Princeton, 1944), pp. 184-185, no. 7. See M. Hendy, SBME, pp. 463-64 and R. Bagnall, Inflation in Fourth Century Egypt, pp. 12-15, who redate the papyrus from earlier dates as argued by C. H. Robert and J. G. Milne in Trans. of Inter. Num. Congress, 1936 (London, 1938), pp. 246-249 and C. H. V. Sutherland, JRS 51 (1961), 94-97.

“Two other fragmentary letters from the same archive (PSI 965 and P. Oslo III. 83) allude to the same reform. In 321 Licinius (308-324) reduced the silver content of his nummus (2.40 gs) and halved its official tariffing to 12.5 d.c. Eastern mints marked the reverses of the nummi with the value mark. The official rate of exchange was probably 1 aureus = 516 nummi sparked off a new wave of price rises until Constantine (306-337) reunited the empire and demonetized the Licinian nummus in 324. See Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, pp. 158-166.”

 

Thanks, Victor. I was hoping you might chime in and clear this up for me.

 

So I just picked up one of these fractional issues (a PACI PERPET coin) and thought I’d resurrect this fine thread with an embarrassing question. Please don’t judge.

I’m reviewing Victor’s discussion of fractional denominations (summarizing David Wigg). Here I read:

“The follis is believed to have had a value of 25 denarii, but the marks of value on these fractionals suggest a value of 24 denarii for the follis.”

When I think of a denarius, I think of the silver coin of the first century. It doesn’t make sense in my mind that 24 of these silver coins equals one bronze coin, even if the bronze has some silver content.

I suppose the answer might be that the “denarius” is so debased by 312 A.D that the image of a first-century denarius is misleading. Indeed, the denarius itself was no longer a struck coin at this time, so I take it that the “denarius communis” was just a mental way of reckoning value, not an actual coin. Is that right?

Maybe I am making a mistake that Glenn addresses above--assuming value relates to the metal in the coin at this time.

But still—24 d.c. for one follis? Can anyone help clarify this equivalence? It still seems counterintuitive to me.

 

As you said, the denarius had disappeared. For a while the antoninianus, which was valued at 2 denari, was the main circulating coin. Eventually, they devolved into small, mostly bronze coins (http://feltemp.com/Emperors/MaximianHerculius.html). With Diocletian's monetary reform, these debased antoniniani, or double denari, were replaced with the large, tetrachic nummi (a.k.a., folli) that, originally, were more than twice the size and weight of the antoniniani (http://feltemp.com/Emperors/Galerius.html). My guess is that these new coins were said to be worth the equivalent of 6 antoniniani. (Is that right, Victor?) But these large nummi did not stay large for very long. Within 25 years or so they had shrunk down to the size of the typical campgate (http://feltemp.com/60_Her_16.html), even though they supposedly retained their original comparative worth.

I think.

Let's see if I'm right. Anyone want to trade a campgate (see link above) for 24 Vespasian denari?

23?

 

Ha! That joke gets at precisely my confusion. But your response provides a nice overview of these confusing denominational changes. I think some pretty creative accounting is going on in the early fourth century.

 

So I’d like to resurrect this thread for a second time. I was pleased to see this scarce Constantine coin in the Aegean numismatics inventory and snatched it up.

It was sold as coming from a London Ancient Coins auction.

But when I consulted this thread to read up on the issue, lo and behold, it seems to be Glenn’s coin that appears earlier in this thread.

I don’t know how active @gsimonel is on this board, but Glenn, if you’re listening, I’d be curious to know how it went from you to London Ancient Coins to Aegean in a fairly short period of time. I’m not suggesting anything nefarious here. I’m just curious about this coin’s journey.

Sorry I don’t have anything more substantive to add to the discussion of the coin type. Maybe this is of interest: I think this is the only contemporary coin that references Constantine’s victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge— struck to honor the Gallic army that propelled Constantine to victory. The IN HOC VICTOR ERIS coin is struck much later. This coin is from 312 or 313.