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<p>[QUOTE="wittwolf, post: 7661600, member: 116854"]Everyone here know Constantine I. "The great" for one reasons or another but mainly because he helped christianity to become the empires dominant religion (if this is a great deed or not in a debate in itself). But was this man really great? What where the great archievments he made for the empire? And was it possibly just himself who started calling himself the great? As far as I know he is the only emperor who uses the legend MAX AVG (great or the greatest augustus) on his coinage (Here an example from my collection):</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1316932[/ATTACH] </p><p>The reasons I make this post because I received an interesting piece from his reign last week. It uses exactly the coin legend and imagery which is possibly mainly famous on coinage of Emperor Trajan: SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI + The three military standarts (Mainly calling him the optimal emperor which is what most people know Trajan for today). I have seen this legend only on coinage of Trajan, Septimius Severus and Constantine yet. Here my new coin:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1316930[/ATTACH] </p><p>So Constantine definetly seems like a guy who really thinks that he is great to a an extend that possibly no other emperor before him practised. While most people have a rather positive image about this man wildwinds.com greets you with an historic comment about him which is rather dark:</p><p><br /></p><p>Constantine: Caesar 306-307 AD; Filius Augustorum 307-309 AD; Augustus 309-337 AD. A vain, effeminate man who loved to adorn his body and the full length of his arms, with jewellery. He executed his son Crispus on trumped-up charges of incest and boiled his own wife, Fausta, to death. He robbed Rome of most of its treasures and moved them to his new, self-named capital city of Constantinople where they were lost or destroyed when that city fell to the Muslims. In AD 330 he erected in the forum of Constantinople a huge, gilded statue of Sol which he had stolen from the temple in Heliopolis, Syria. The head of Sol was changed to resemble Constantine and inscribed "Constantino solis instar fulgenti", and citizens were forced to worship him as the sun-god. (From the French translation of a late 4th c. Latin text)</p><p><br /></p><p>So was this really a great man? Wasnt most of his glory based on civil wars he himself triggered which destroyed the till that point stable tetrarchy and replaced it with himself? Didnt he kill his most competent heir (Crispus) and did so much secrecy about this act that we will possibly never fully know about the circumstances? And was it really a blessing for the empire to support christianity? </p><p>To add some positive things I know about him that dont really make him a great but quite competent emperor would be his succesfull wars against the germansand his continuation of the fortress building program that started under the tetrachs. After winning all those civil wars he also brought a quite stable era to the empire until his death.</p><p><br /></p><p>Feel free to add your opinion about this emperor and your awesome coinage from his reign to this thread. Also if you got any OPTIMO PRINCIPI coins from this or other emperors in your collection those are definetly interesting for this topic too.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="wittwolf, post: 7661600, member: 116854"]Everyone here know Constantine I. "The great" for one reasons or another but mainly because he helped christianity to become the empires dominant religion (if this is a great deed or not in a debate in itself). But was this man really great? What where the great archievments he made for the empire? And was it possibly just himself who started calling himself the great? As far as I know he is the only emperor who uses the legend MAX AVG (great or the greatest augustus) on his coinage (Here an example from my collection): [ATTACH=full]1316932[/ATTACH] The reasons I make this post because I received an interesting piece from his reign last week. It uses exactly the coin legend and imagery which is possibly mainly famous on coinage of Emperor Trajan: SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI + The three military standarts (Mainly calling him the optimal emperor which is what most people know Trajan for today). I have seen this legend only on coinage of Trajan, Septimius Severus and Constantine yet. Here my new coin: [ATTACH=full]1316930[/ATTACH] So Constantine definetly seems like a guy who really thinks that he is great to a an extend that possibly no other emperor before him practised. While most people have a rather positive image about this man wildwinds.com greets you with an historic comment about him which is rather dark: Constantine: Caesar 306-307 AD; Filius Augustorum 307-309 AD; Augustus 309-337 AD. A vain, effeminate man who loved to adorn his body and the full length of his arms, with jewellery. He executed his son Crispus on trumped-up charges of incest and boiled his own wife, Fausta, to death. He robbed Rome of most of its treasures and moved them to his new, self-named capital city of Constantinople where they were lost or destroyed when that city fell to the Muslims. In AD 330 he erected in the forum of Constantinople a huge, gilded statue of Sol which he had stolen from the temple in Heliopolis, Syria. The head of Sol was changed to resemble Constantine and inscribed "Constantino solis instar fulgenti", and citizens were forced to worship him as the sun-god. (From the French translation of a late 4th c. Latin text) So was this really a great man? Wasnt most of his glory based on civil wars he himself triggered which destroyed the till that point stable tetrarchy and replaced it with himself? Didnt he kill his most competent heir (Crispus) and did so much secrecy about this act that we will possibly never fully know about the circumstances? And was it really a blessing for the empire to support christianity? To add some positive things I know about him that dont really make him a great but quite competent emperor would be his succesfull wars against the germansand his continuation of the fortress building program that started under the tetrachs. After winning all those civil wars he also brought a quite stable era to the empire until his death. Feel free to add your opinion about this emperor and your awesome coinage from his reign to this thread. Also if you got any OPTIMO PRINCIPI coins from this or other emperors in your collection those are definetly interesting for this topic too.[/QUOTE]
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