Reading up a bit on the life of Constantine the Great. One book mentioned a couple of instances where CtG arrived in a mint city and the coins reflected this by adding a star to the reverse field. An example: London mint, A.D. 310-312 RIC 133 Obv: CONSTANTINVS P F AVG Rev: ADVE-NTVS AVG - Prince on horseback holding spear and raising right hand; captive in front PLN in exergue; star in right field 21 x 24 mm, 4.2 g. (All my London mint coins from A.D. 310-313 have a star in the field.) So my question is: how consistent is this? If I have a CtG coin with a star in the reverse field, can I assume he was in town when the coin was minted. I did a little poking around and came to the conclusion that stars in the mint mark don't necessarily indicate his presence--does anyone know if these stars have any particular significance?--but before I spend any more time looking into the possibility that the reverse stars were meant to denote his presence, has anyone already determined this one way of the other?
I've never heard this before. Stars in the field are common with Roman coinage and go back a few centuries (maybe more, I dont pay much attention to Republican). Its most certainly a control mark.
I don't believe that stars had anything to do with Constantine's presence in a city. Why think that a star indicated his presence when the reverse is an ADVENTVS which clearly signifies his arrival. In the latest book on London mint by Cloke and Toone, they place the first issue of this coin in late 311 or early 312 and it commemorated a trip to Britain to gather troop against Maxentius. This type continued even after Constantine left England and was fighting Maxentius, though the star moved to the left field in these later issues.
Stars usually represent something out of the ordinary, but sometimes they don´t. Your coin in particular has a specific "ADVENTVS AVG" reverse, which clearly means the emperor is coming to town. Some other case is when a workshop is coining with, say, "VESTA" reverse and they have to produce extra coinage for some reason, then they would stick to "VESTA" as mark of their workshop for this period, but add a star in field to keep record that it belongs to an additional output.
Here's links to a few more London mint coins from 310-313 with stars in the field: http://feltemp.com/24_Lon_153.html http://feltemp.com/25_Lon_177.html http://feltemp.com/26_Lon_195.html http://feltemp.com/27_Lon_222.html http://feltemp.com/37_Lon_246.html http://feltemp.com/38_Lon_265.html I will try to track down the reference that talked about adding a star to a field on coins with Constantine arrived in the city.
In A.D. 317, London used a combination of control marks which included a star and Constantine was not anywhere near Britain at the time. below is the companion piece to the ADVENTVS type- the SPES issue
Well that certainly saves me a lot of wasted time researching wild geese. Thanks, Victor. (BTW, I've been drooling over that SPES coin in your VCoins store for quite some time now. Some day . . .)
Cool... I have always thought the Stars have interesting significance, even if they are "control" marks, a feature, etc. I have a star that always fascinated me: Roman Republic Anon 211-206 BCE AR Victoriatus STAR Very Rare Sear 49; Syd 233a; Craw 105/1 Why?
