Constantinus "In Hoc Signo Vinces"

And for some reason I've always thought Magnentius looked like country music star Conway Twitty. Maybe a distant relation.

 

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Nope - see @Voulgaroktonou's post above for the most famous example. A few others are listed on @Valentinian's page here (though mostly field marks than part of the design).

 

Ah yes. I forget about the Spes coin because I see it so rarely. That link to Warren's page is helpful. Thanks.

 

I think this is a Chi-Rho on the banner..

 

a brutal beauty! O_O!! thanks!!!

 

Great thread! I'm going to start a full collection of this exciting iconography

I think I see some Cri-Rho`s in this lot (maybe 4 or 5?):
https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=3943&category=97145&lot=3240698

Is one of the coins like this one type?
https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=344144

Rarity, please?

 

No idea but funny!!!

 

Oh? The Trier mint failed to understand the theology involved and issued the type for the Arian Constantius II after he retook the city. The flanking A-W declares that Christ was around from the beginning and would be around to he end which was the Orthodox position. Arians consdered Christ to have been created by God and like Him but not the same as Him. They could not accept the alpha and omega doctrine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

 

amen

 

Valens. A poor anverse, but a visible reverse type GLORIA ROMANORVM with a Chi-Ro inside the banner:

 

Nice! (and with some cleaning it would be a fantastic coin, IMO...)

 

Thanks, @RAGNAROK!

 

Your comments about the Arian position are right on point, but I don't think your assessment of what was going on at Trier is necessarily correct. I don't think they misunderstood the issue. Arianism never made as much headway in the Western empire, with its Catholic Christianity, as it had in the east. I think the mint at Trier was intentionally taking a pro-Western anti-Arian approach to honoring the emperor from the east. The addition of the Alpha and Omega bracketing the Chi-Rho made it a part of Western Christian symbolism that has continued to the present even among some post-Reformation Protestants, such as Lutherans and, I believe, Anglicans. When it comes to symbols, misunderstandings don't get canonized like that.

 

I think Doug's point was this: The type was originally introduced by Magnentius as a piece of pro-Catholic propaganda, rallying local (predominantly Catholic) support to his cause against Constantius II. For the mint to pair a piece of anti-Constantius propaganda on the reverse with Constantius's portrait on the obverse is, at the very least, rather ironic!

(The persistence of the alpha-omega iconography through to the reformation can be fully explained by its being part of the Catholic orthodoxy for over a thousand years.)

 

As I understood the matter the only reason that pagan Magnentius issued the type was to curry favor with the radical element of Roman Christians who would prefer a friendly pagan to a heretic Arian like Constantius II. While Constantius II and Constantine I were not hardcore on theological details, their attempts get all Christians to work out their differences and not kill each other over such things. Had the mint understood the matter, it would have been a simple matter to use the type minus the letters that supported the Catholic view.

 

I think we agree on the motivation of Magnentius. However, I also think the mint officials at Trier were more radically Catholic than you are allowing. They had no intention of compromising two centuries of theological development for the sake of an Arian interloper. The locals knew how to contend against paganism in official circles, but Arianism was a new threat (i.e. 320 AD) coming out of the east, a distinct partition of the Empire. It would seem from their choice of iconography that they dug in. Any attempt to reunify the empire was going to meet resistance at that level, and the subsequent east-west division under the Valentinians, I think, justifies that perception. They didn't compromise; and the division never really got resolved.

 

Good point, I think, particularly when the "henhouse" is very upset...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies