You know how it is, when you're browsing a coin auction or store, and a coin suddenly "jumps out" at you? You immediately recognize it as something special. Well that is what happened to me the moment I saw this one come up on @Victor_Clark 's VCoins store, and it did not take long for it to hop from my wishlist, to cart, to mailbox! Of course, what grabbed my attention on this coin was the absolutely extraordinary portrait of Constantius I. Far from the heavily stylized, enforced uniformity one usually sees on Tetrarchic folles, the portrait on this coin shows realism, proportion, and a sensitivity reminiscent of the coinage of Hadrian, Trajan, or even the Flavians. It's a relic of a bygone era - a throwback to the high Empire of the 2nd century, a time irrevocably lost through the crises of the mid-late 200's AD. What makes this coin even more amazing to me is that it came from the mint at Alexandria, Egypt. Now I've nothing against the Alexandrians but you have to face it, by the time of the Dominate the portrait style was distinctive and about as far from proportioned realism as you can get! Even the better mints such as Aquileia or Ticinum rarely, if ever, turned out a portrait to match this one, nor did other Alexandrian coins of this same issue (RIC VI 40). The only other RIC VI 40 I could find that is remotely similar was an obverse die match from the British Museum. It would appear that this obverse die is something of an engraver's anomaly. --EDIT-- I should have looked more closely - the BM coin is not a die match, although the portrait styles are very similar. Same engraver, perhaps? It makes me wonder, who was this die engraver, and was he consciously trying to imitate the artistic style of days gone by? Did he have an older piece from the 2nd century, kept either as a curiosity, good luck token, or maybe even as part of a collection? Did anyone else in antiquity notice the break from the standard local style? The speculation is interesting if nothing else. The reverse is also fascinating, and an unusual one amid the sea of “Genius” types. It’s also a fitting type for Constantius, as Caesar to Maximianus Herculius. The reverse alone makes this coin something special, quite aside from the obverse. All in all, a beautiful coin which will remain a favorite in my collection!
Coins of this era are not really my thing, but I must say, yes, that is indeed a very handsome example, and the style seems quite fine for the era.
A beautiful coin it is! A fine example. Alexandria had a large Greek population during Roman times and going back to the Ptolemaic kings, probably even earlier, since Egypt was such an essential source of grains to the ancient world of the Mediterranean. It is the Greek factor, I think, that carried on the classical artistic traditions over the centuries in Alexandria. The coinage of Alexandria often had a quality of die engraving that was seldom replicated elsewhere, Antioch possibly an exception. However, as the chaos of the middle-late 3rd to the 4th centuries AD progressed, even the quality of the Alexandria coins suffered, which makes your coin quite exceptional, particularly with the obverse, but the reverse as well.
Nice coin @The Meat man . Definitely a nice portrait and an interesting reverse. Here is my favorite Constantius Chlorus.
