The establishment of Christianity in the ancient world.. Constantine and Helena

Constantine and Helena. Roman Empire. Commemoration of the establishment of Constantinople. 3rd Siliqua. Silver. AD330. 11mm x 0.88g. Toned. Very rare.

Bust of Helena, Mother of Constantine. Reverse single K representing the first character of the city of Constantinople.

This tiny coin is historical in many ways. Firstly, it was struck during the reign of Emperor Constantine, whom was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity as the predominant religion of the then pagan Roman Empire and eventually most of Europe and the west today. Whilst coins of Constantine are common, silver issues such as this are very rare as most of his coins issued are of AE alloy.

Secondly, it featured Helena who was a devout Christian and influential figure in the life and reign of the Emperor. She was tasked to seek and oversee the recovery of Christian relics. Such was her piety and influence that she was canonized by the Catholic and much of the Orthodox Churches.

Finally, this coin commemorated the founding of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire when it was conquered and renamed Istanbul to this day. One of history's greatest cities, Constantinople is a lasting legacy of the Roman Empire and Ottoman Caliphate which has culturally shaped much of Ancient Europe to this day.

 

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It is true that Constantine's reign was "instrumental in the establishment of Christianity as the predominant religion of the then pagan Roman Empire", to quote your post. But let us not forget that Constantine himself was not baptized until on his deathbed. He considered himself as the emperor of all the Romans, Christians and Pagans.
I remember having read an ancient text about the foundation of Constantinople, and I cannot remember of which author . Eusebius? A Pagan one?
In fact Constantinopolis was not founded by Constantine as a Christian city. Saint Sophia, Saint Irene, the Holy Apostles church were not churches at all in Constantine's project when he commissioned these monuments. The Holy Apostles church was dedicated as a church by his successor Constantius II who was a Christian (Arian). In the first place Constantine designed it as a lavish rotunda-shaped mausoleum for himself. Sophia and Irene were not saints, there were never before 330 women or girls of that name who had been martyrized for their Christian faith. Sophia was Wisdom and Irene was Peace, two abstractions - like there was in Rome temples of Concordia or Pax.
The spirit of Constantine's initial project was founding a new capital where Christians of all sects and Pagans would live together in peace, under the wise administration of the enlightened emperor. It is under Constantius II that Christians rose to supremacy.

 

Beautiful Coin @Loong Siew , the original name was New Rome, it was later renamed by the population as Constantinople. This was done in the year 330 AD, the year of your coin. It actually officially kept the name long after its fall , it was renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

It took a long time for the empire to become fully Christian. Constantine went to great lengths to make Christianity attractive to all. He built churches that were bigger and grander than any other deity's temple. To convert many of the citizens he had to win them over, however he could not remain popular without supporting all the faiths.

 

Thanks.. I wanted to collect a silver coin of Constantine but they are hard to come by.. To me his main legacy was the setting of Christianity as the major religion of Rome. This coin having Helena and its commemoration of Constantinople is a bonus..

 

Helena, given unfettered access to the treasury, built such things as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai.

 

That's a great coin, but the figure on the obverse is almost certainly Constantinopolis rather than Helena, despite the unusual diademed depiction. We can see this most clearly by comparison to the orichalcum P-R types (RIC VIII Rome 104, 106, but reattributed to Constantinpole 330 AD) where we see the same busts, but with legends of Constantinopolis and Roma.



Obviously all the attention was on Constantinople for the dedication in 330 AD, but Constantine evidentially took care to share the spotlight with Rome, issuing these various paired Constantinopolis/Roma types (continuing on to the common Constantinopolis and Vrbs Roma bronzes issued from all mints).

These dedication types are discussed in Lars Ramskold's paper "Coins and medallions struck for the inauguration of Constantinopolis 11 May 330", available here:

https://www.academia.edu/1469456/Co...ars_Ramskold_Niš_and_Byzantium_IX_pp_125_158_

It's interesting to see the varied headgear worn by Constantinopolis on thise types. Roma is always helmetted as expected, but on the medallion (RIC 53) Constantinopolis is turreted, on the orichalcum and silver fractions she is diademed, and on the common bronze types she is helmetted!

Note that although Constantine was very supportive of Christianity, he never actually made it the official religion ... that was done later by Theodosius I. Constantinople seems to have been (re)founded as much a pagan city as a Christian one, given that at the center was a very prominent column topped with a statue of Constantine in guise of the sun god Sol.

 

Nice article. Thank you.

 

Thanks..But I disagree on the attribution of the figure to Constantinopolis. The sister coin with the P is attributed to the Goddess Roma but there was no Roman Goddess to my knowledge of Constantinopolis. Also, the city was named Constantinople in his name and lifetime. It is beyond even Constantine himself to name a city and create a divinity at the same time. Neither has there been any written or reliable records to identify the image to Constantinopolis. In fact, some tried to even assume the image to Constantines wife but it seems very unlikely given the visage. Also, Helena died not too long before this hence the issue in honor of her image is most likely.

Moreover, the depiction of Constantinopolis was that of a helmeted deity with regalia and armor..not a diademed image of nobility. Comparisons of the image against existing images of Helena are strikingly similar. Unless we do not discount the possibility of Constantine representing Constantinopolis in the image of Helena not unlike Alexander impressing his image on Hercules.

 

Constantinopolis was obviously a new "goddess", a protective city tyche and personification, that came along with the renaming of Byzantium to Constantinopolis. This may be her first appearance on the coins at the dedication in 330 AD.

The figures of Roma (with her distinctive helmet) and Constantinopolis (with her tyche-like turreted crown and foot on prow) on the medallion seem clear enough, and the foot on prow would also seem to make it clear this is the same figure that then immediately appears on the common bronze commemorative with legend of "Constantinopolis", and again with foot on prow. It's certainly interesting to see her depiction change from turreted to helmetted, but it is what it is! Perhaps they were just deciding how to depict this new goddess/personification?

The diademed bust on your coin is certainly not what we expect Constantinopolis to look like given these two other (one turreted, one helmetted) depictions, but then we see the exact same diademed bust on the P-R orichalcum piece where she is identified as Constantinpolis by the legend. Additionally, the bust (with diadem and ties vs fancy hair style) does not match what we'd expect for Helena, especially at this date.

 

Anyway we will end up speculating ourselves what the possibility could be. You are merely referencing to other possible associations of Constantinopolis based on other orichalcum coin depictions. But I and many others have also see similar representations of Helena on the same style and more so than that 1 specimen of Constantinopolis depicted on that Orichalcum piece. There is no merit to determine that either of our assumptions are definitive. Don't forget that this coin was minted on the FOUNDING of Constantinople, not years later where evolution of design becomes more likely. Even if they see fitting for a divine representation like Tyche as Constantinopolis, I doubt it should precede even the officiating or founding of the city itself.

Regardless, I do not wish to debate on the matter based on assumptions raised. The problem with this piece is that it is anonymous on the portrait. We are entitled to our opinions and interpretations

 

Interesting coin. It's true that you don't often see Constantine issues in silver.

However, I often find it misleading when someone's listed as "founding" a city. Such is the case with Constantine, who didn't really "found" Constantinople. He captured the existing city of Byzantion and renamed it. Even the name Byzantion, supposedly, only goes back to 667 BCE, at which point it was called Lygos. I'm sure that wasn't the first name, either.

Here's my coin from when it was called Byzantion.


Constantine was a remarkable general with a keen understanding of how to control both the borders of a large empire and its inhabitants.

I also disagree with the statement of a progression from a "pagan" Roman Empire to a "Christian" one, as that's a gross simplification (and kind of demeaning given that a fair percentage of those "pagans" were Jews and Christians). While within Rome itself the Religio Romana dominated, that wasn't the case for the entire empire, which tolerated a great many religions. In fact, a more correct transition is from an empire that more-or-less placed the utmost importance on loyalty to the emperor, with little care to individual religious preferences, to one that demanded absolute adherence on both accounts.

In that respect, Constantine was crucial, as he was the first to combine the two in one person.

 

Cool coin of Byzantion. I had not seen one of those before.

 

The Ottomans, using Arabic as the official language, called the city "al-qusṭanṭīniyya". But the Greek-speaking people, probably even before 1453, usually said "is tin polin" (εἰς τὴν πόλιν) which means: "to the city" or "in the city". The Turks repeated this phonetically, creating the Turkish city-name Istanbul.

 

Here is a thread from Forum, the question was discussed in 2004. I was very interested in the post by Monty when talking to his wife's family. It is a good thread worth the read.

when did Constantinople become Istanbul?? (forumancientcoins.com)

The city name in 1920's the post office would no longer accept mail to Constantinople, only Istanbul, that came from a wiki article.

 

Here is another CONSTANTINOPOLIS /P R coin. The bust is far from identical to, but similar to, the OP silver piece with "K". Helena has numerous portrait styles, none of which are close to the OP portrait. Here is one from Siscia that doesn't have the stephanie (tiara) and therefore is about as close as Helena's portraits get to the OP portrait.



Of course, it would be neat to have a silver coin with Helena commemorating the foundation of Constantinople. (Which is spelled with a "C" on its coins, not "K".) But there is little evidence that the bust on the OP type really is Helena. (The evidence is mostly that previous writers, wishing the good story were so, have repeated an unfounded conjecture.)

Simon Bendall wrote scholarly articles on the anonymous silver types of the 4th-6th centuries, including the OP type, and finds the ones in the best style may be close in time to the foundation of Constantinople c. 330. But he only describes the obverse as "Diademed and draped female bust right."

 

Yet, this was common practice at the time. Since baptism was believed to remove all sins, it was usually administered late in life or on the death bed. The idea of baptizing babies came in much later.

 

The OP coin is wonderful. However, I also think that it does not depict Helena, but a personification of Constantinopolis, which would be much more in keeping with similar series as Heliodromus pointed out.


Below are my favourite coins of Helena from my collection:

 

There are two different bust (hair) styles for Helena, one early and one later. The eastern mints, from Heraclea on down, consistently use both busts, but some of the western ones (e.g. London, Lyons, Arles) only use the early one. Trier also has both, maybe being better in touch.

During the time period that Constantine is issuing for Helena, from 324 to her death in 328-329, many of his mints repeat issue marks for distinct issues, but for Constantine we can tell these apart by his bust progression from laureate to diademed, to diademed and draped. At some mints RIC also catches the later bust style for Helena and attributes them to the appropriate issue, but at other mints (Heraclea, Constantinole, Cyzicus) RIC has at least partially missed this.

Here are the two bust styles for Helena at Constantinople. RIC fails to distinguish them, and would attribute both as RIC 11.

The early style c.326-327



The later style c.327-329 (this specimen from Vienna)



We can also see the later style bust used on an unlisted anepigraphic fraction (rev: HELENA AVGVSTA) from Constantinople for Helena. Presumably this fraction is from the same issue as the anepigraphic DAFNE type for Constantine, and therefore dates to c.328 AD, as might be expected for this later bust/hair style.

This specimen is ex. Jose Herraro Mayo 15, and was illustrated in Lars Ramskold's treatise on the SPES PVBLIC type.



As can be seen, the later bust for Helena differs from the early one in being more elaborate, having the braid(?) down/up the back of her head. Note also that in both styles she wears some type of decorated hair band, as opposed to the diadem/tiara (easily distinguishable by the presence of ties in the back) that we see on these Constantinopolis fractions.