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My first Constantine coin!
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<p>[QUOTE="Gavin Richardson, post: 3216531, member: 83956"]Great first Constantine!</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Collector has done a nice job helping with the legend. Here's a little more info:</p><p><br /></p><p>Obverse<b>:</b> IMP C CONSTANTINVS PF AVG.</p><p><br /></p><p>The IMP stands for "Imperator," a term we might simply gloss as "emperor," but it originally had a military meaning of "commander," just like the President of the United States is also "Commander in Chief."</p><p><br /></p><p>I'm honestly not sure about the "extra" C before "CONSTANTINVS." It probably means "Caesar," another title, but Constantine did have "Gaius" as part of his name, so that can't be ruled out. Maybe [USER=10613]@Victor_Clark[/USER] can tell us.</p><p><br /></p><p>PF stands for "pius" and "felix," a fairly standard group of adjectives. "<i>Pius</i>" is related to English "pious," but the Latin term is more generous, since "<i>pietas</i>" is the Roman principle of being devoted to the gods, to family, and to country. Thus the "pius" man is marked by devotion to all the appropriate things for a Roman. "Felix" can mean a range of things--fortunate, happy, blessed.</p><p><br /></p><p>And of course, he is the "AVGustus," the supreme ruler, at least in the West.</p><p><br /></p><p>So I'd gloss the obverse something like, <b>"The Commander [C?] Constantine, the Pious and Blessed Augustus."</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Reverse<b>:</b> IOVI CONSERVATORI AVGG N N / • TS•E</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Collector has already parsed the reverse. The "dative case" just means that the endings of the words convey grammatical information; most Roman coin reverse legends are in the dative because this case indicates that this coin or legend is <i>dedicated to</i> the deity or concept named--in this case, <i>to </i>Jove.</p><p><br /></p><p>One interesting detail--when you see these forms terminating in an "extra" letter, it means there's more than one of something. We might expect AVG here, but we get AVGG with an extra G because there are <u>two </u>Augusti at this time--I presume Constantine and Licinius. The N here stands for the first-person possessive plural pronoun "our" in Latin--<i>noster </i>(genitive: <i>nostri</i>), but the <u>two </u>N's -NN- pattern with the two -GGs because of the two Augusti.</p><p><br /></p><p>So to borrow [USER=75937]@Roman Collector[/USER]'s parsing, this coin reverse is struck <b>"To Jupiter the Perserver/Protector/Defender of our Augusti."</b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Gavin Richardson, post: 3216531, member: 83956"]Great first Constantine! Roman Collector has done a nice job helping with the legend. Here's a little more info: Obverse[B]:[/B] IMP C CONSTANTINVS PF AVG. The IMP stands for "Imperator," a term we might simply gloss as "emperor," but it originally had a military meaning of "commander," just like the President of the United States is also "Commander in Chief." I'm honestly not sure about the "extra" C before "CONSTANTINVS." It probably means "Caesar," another title, but Constantine did have "Gaius" as part of his name, so that can't be ruled out. Maybe [USER=10613]@Victor_Clark[/USER] can tell us. PF stands for "pius" and "felix," a fairly standard group of adjectives. "[I]Pius[/I]" is related to English "pious," but the Latin term is more generous, since "[I]pietas[/I]" is the Roman principle of being devoted to the gods, to family, and to country. Thus the "pius" man is marked by devotion to all the appropriate things for a Roman. "Felix" can mean a range of things--fortunate, happy, blessed. And of course, he is the "AVGustus," the supreme ruler, at least in the West. So I'd gloss the obverse something like, [B]"The Commander [C?] Constantine, the Pious and Blessed Augustus."[/B] Reverse[B]:[/B] IOVI CONSERVATORI AVGG N N / • TS•E Roman Collector has already parsed the reverse. The "dative case" just means that the endings of the words convey grammatical information; most Roman coin reverse legends are in the dative because this case indicates that this coin or legend is [I]dedicated to[/I] the deity or concept named--in this case, [I]to [/I]Jove. One interesting detail--when you see these forms terminating in an "extra" letter, it means there's more than one of something. We might expect AVG here, but we get AVGG with an extra G because there are [U]two [/U]Augusti at this time--I presume Constantine and Licinius. The N here stands for the first-person possessive plural pronoun "our" in Latin--[I]noster [/I](genitive: [I]nostri[/I]), but the [U]two [/U]N's -NN- pattern with the two -GGs because of the two Augusti. So to borrow [USER=75937]@Roman Collector[/USER]'s parsing, this coin reverse is struck [B]"To Jupiter the Perserver/Protector/Defender of our Augusti."[/B][/QUOTE]
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