Constantine I - Folles series of Constantinople

I have the following 4 folles of Constantine I in my collection. They are all from the mint of Constantinople and the types were only issued by this mint. They all date to AD 327/328. I wonder if these coins represented some kind of series, perhaps to mark special events directly related to Constantinople?

LIBERTAS PVBLICA
AD 327/28. To mark his naval victory in the Bosphorus where Constantine captured Byzantium (i.e. Constantinople) from Licinius?

GLORIA ROMANORVM
AD 328
Probably just a reference to the glory of Rome, maybe intended to stress that Rome will remain Rome even with a new capital.


GLORIA EXERCITVS
AD 328
I don't know of a specific event that this coin could celebrate. It is probably a reference to the army on which Constantine's power rested.


CONSTANTINIANA DAFNE
AD 328. To mark the construction of a military fort on the Danube? This interpretation is unlikely. More plausible is the interpretation that the reverse represents the Daphne mythos to indicate the transformation of the old capital Rome into the new capital Constantinople. The depiction on the reverse is enigmatic. The deity (Daphne, Victoria?) is holding laurel branch (=Daphne) and a palm branch. Why is she turning away from the captive to her feets? Does the palm branch stand for Christianity?

 

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This whole series, along with the SPES PVBLIC, was created for Constantine to sum up his victory over Licinius. The DAFNE type culminates this celebratory coinage.

http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com//DAFNE/

 

Beatiful folles. I do not have LIBERTAS.

 

Lovely! I've only got the Constantiniana one.

 

My favorite DAFNE!

 

I kinda like those greenies on the coin. At one point I would have wanted to remove them, but they look kinda cool, almost like malachite

 

I totally agree! When I got it, the coin had some loose dusty dirt that I took off with light dry brushing but after a second of thought, I didn’t touch the green. It’s pretty this way.

 

It could be. Malachite (greenish), Azurite (blueish), and Cuprite (reddish) are all among the crystal-forming minerals that grow on coins -- particularly AE.

 

Those are spectacular examples from the series. I have only two of them:





As @Victor_Clark notes on his excellent page, the mint at Constantinople started minting a bit before this series. Here's one of its earliest products:

 

Wow, a silvered LIBERTAS PVBLICA. Here is a sandy one:

 

I'm surprised no one ever mentions the Sanctuary of Apollo at Daphne in Syria. It was founded as a suburb of the city of Antioch by Seleucus I around 300 BC and remained one of the primary religious sites in the Greco-Roman world of Constantine's day. Indeed Constantine erected a statue of his mother Helena there. Constantine was originally a devotee of Apollo as Helios/ Sol Invictus, which some suggest he came to associate with the God of the Christians. Might "The Constantinian Dafne" (Constantiniana Dafne) be an effort by Constantine to depict Constantinople as the new Daphne and himself as the new Seleucus? Food for thought.

 

I mention it on my page I linked to earlier.

 

Indeed you do. I overlooked it.

 

Thanks a lot for the reply and the link. This is a great resource! I couldn't stop reading. I got a whole new perspective on my rather unorganized Constantinian bronzes.

The bad news is that the SPES PVBLICA type is out of my reach. I would love to complete the series, but this type is usually too expensive. I wonder why this type was (apparently) produced in smaller numbers. Maybe it was considered too overtly Christian at the time.

The Dafne folles are quite amazing. The propagandistic messages of the other coins is very clear and easy to read, but the symbolism of the Dafne folles appear to be very subtle and perhaps accessible only to the educated elite.

Best
Dirk

 

The sandy follis looks great. In fact, I think that these folles look best without silvering and without green patina. This is why I like my Gloria Exercitus and the Dafne follis best. My impression is that bronze folles without silvering and patina, but with a nice dark brown to black even toning fetch the highest prices.

 

Agreed, the eyes to heaven version is particularly appealing.

 

I read a biography of Constantine I recently. I was particularly interested in his Christian conversion. Apparently, Constantine's idea of Christianity was very different from our understanding. Constantine turned to Christianity for similar reasons as Aurelian had tried to promote the cult of Sol Invictus. Constantine believed that Christianity with its single god could provide the basis for a single cult that unified the empire. He regarded the Christian god as a war god, that had brought him victory over Maxentius and Licinius and he regarded himself as something of a new Christ. I think his coinage reflects his particular version of Christianity and his particular reason for conversion well.

 

I think the symbolism on this series is really quite amazing. Take the LIBERTAS PVBLICA follis again:

Victoria is holding two laurel wreath to mark the two victories at Adriantople (3.July 324) and Chrysopolis (18. September 324), which brought total defeat to Licinius.

Victoria is standing on a galley to mark the fact that large naval forces (200 warships, 2000 transport ships with 10'000 seamen) were involved in the campaign.

And then there is the legend itself (public liberty), which seems to indicate that Constantine wanted people to see his war against Licinius as a war of liberation and not a war of aggression.

Finally, the fact that the type was only minted at Constantinople leaves no doubt which campaign was celebrated.

 

Next up is the GLORIA EXERCITVS follis again.

To celebrate a great victory there had to be a "glory to the army" type. The figure on the reverse is usually describes as "a soldier". I think this is wrong. I think the figure is Constantine himself. The figure is wearing a lorica musculata, i.e. a type of armour that was probably no longer in use in the early 4th century and in any case one that is associated with the highest ranks and of course the emperor himself.

The emperor is holding the lance upside down and he is turning his head away from the lance. This maybe insignificant, but the gesture and the position of the lance may be understood as a promise of peace to a population that was tired of civil war.

 

Next comes the GLORIA ROMANORVM follis:

The depiction of Roma seated was a classical image that went back to the 1. century and it was reused until recently for example on British coins as Britannia seated.

I think the image was chosen to play down the fact that the war against Licinius was an internal civil war with devastating effects on the Roman population. Instead Constantine wanted people to see the war and his victory as a Roman victory and show the defeated Licinius almost like an external enemy. Maybe the image was to be understood as a promise of future glory.