Ancient Rome: Constantine I AE Follis, London Mint

i have two groups. 1st one is semi knowns(think but not sure) and the 2nd is "what are these?!?"(no idea). i got plenty to do i'm pretty sure most of the 1st group are Constantine and sons. i see an ancient Constantine coin and write up made "featured" on Cointalk. all hail ancients! yayyy!

 

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Thanks Warren. I have another follis being cleaned right now (since I had no luck, someone else is kindly doing me the favor) and I can't wait to see how its going to turn out.

 

As someone who has no great love of Constantine (even though I collect his bronzes), I can't help noticing that both you and Dane at wildwinds.com use the term "effeminate" as an implied criticism of him. (From Dane's description: A vain, effeminate man who loved to adorn his body and the full length of his arms, with jewelry.")

I'm curious about this for two reasons: 1) how do we know this with any certainty 1,600 later, especially in the light of how biased--both pro and against--all the contemporary descriptions of Constantine are, and 2) why this should be a trait worth passing judgement on. Considering all his other faults--and all the other outrageous behavior exhibited by other Roman emperors, sexual and otherwise--being effeminate seems pretty tame to me.

 

Kind of reminds of me of this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/231868617439

True or not, he mentions it in the title like its a huge deal or something.

 

Perhaps putting "Gay" in the listing title will help him sell an $8 coin for $47.25.

 

I was going to mention the same listing from our favorite "highprice lowethics" dealer. Not only is such a listing crassly exploitative of sexual identity, it fundamentally misunderstands sexual practices of the classical world, which were understood more as actions than "identities." I think the "gay Constans" concept has its origins in the Roman historian Eutropius, an intimate of Julian who would have had no love for the House of Constantine. At any rate, if Constans did indulge in pederastic behaviors, he was probably no more "gay" than Tiberius. But whatever moves a crappy coin. I suppose if I want to look for responsible historiography, I should look elsewhere than eBay seller descriptions.

 

Well, I have no problem with describing him as effeminate. Ultimately that in itself is not an insult...rather a description. Plenty of effeminate men in this world do great things for society. And I honestly could care less if he was gay, though being effeminate is not a sign of gayness. I've met gay men who are more masculine than most straight men I know. You can be straight and effeminate

The real fault, however, as far as Im concerned was not Constantine's effeminate habit of covering every inch of his body with jewels... but rather his temper, bloodlust, habbit of murdering his family members, and the decision to favor one religion over the rest, which would eventually destroy much of our culture, literature, philosophy and traditions.

 

I think Julian II would agree with you. I'm no fan of Constantine's particular brand of Christianity. But Christianity, being a "religion of the book," seemed to have a deep and abiding interest in textual traditions. There's a reason why so much of our knowledge of classical authors owes to monastic preservation. Did Christianity censor and suppress more than it preserved? I honestly don't know; that's too broad a question to reward my general speculation. It's fair to criticize Constantine's privileging of Christianity for destroying much of traditional pagan culture, but a responsible assessment also has to factor in Christianity's preservative powers as well, which were considerable.

 

Absolutely, Sallant. I agree with everything you wrote. That's why I was scratching my head over the (apparently recent?) use of the term as a criticism in two separate descriptions, yours and Dane's. I'd never heard Constantine described that way before, and I was wondering why it suddenly came up twice in such a short time. Probably just a coincidence.