COTD: Constantine Sol with Whip

[Gavin]

So this might be a bit ingratiating to the board owner, but here’s a new coin I was very happy to pick up from Victor this week: a Constantine SOLI INVICTO COMITI with Sol brandishing a whip. I’ve had my eye on it for some time and finally pulled the trigger. Constantine’s SOLI coins are ubiquitous, but this Lyons issue of Sol with whip is rated scarce by RIC. Only two other specimens on VCoins right now.

I believe Martin Griffiths has suggested that the Sol variants at Lyons (Sol with whip; Sol with globe, which is not in RIC) could indicate that the first SOLI coins were struck at Lyons, as if that mint was experimenting with finding a standard type. I like that speculation, but it must remain speculation. At any rate, a lovely coin with excellent reverse detail.

[Victor]

Ingratiate away 

There are several gold coins with Sol reverses, holding globes from Trier. These were struck A.D. 305- 307 (Trier 616, 630- 632) which (by RIC VI dating) puts them about 2 years earlier than the Lyons bronze issue, struck  A.D. 309.

London also issued some Sol with whip and globe and Sol with globe only struck, according to RIC dating 307- 310. The example below, though, is circa 310- 312.

 

Perhaps some engravers did not know, according to the new regulations, Sol should only hold a globe 

Not as confusing as Aurelian Sol reverses though.

[Gavin]

I'm still trying to process the timeline on these Sol issues. I find the RIC dating discussion a bit frustrating. In RIC VI Sutherland stresses that the explosion of Sol coinage for Constantine occurs after his vision of 310. But you are right, he lists a date of 307-312 for these London Sol coins. In his introduction to the London mint he writes, "Two new types, on relatively light weight coins, appear, each for Constantine alone; Comiti Augg Nn and Soli Invicto Comiti, both with Sol, who at Trier makes a sudden impact on the aes ca. 310, and at Lyons certainly no later--a reflection of Constantine's vision of Apollo in Gaul early that year" (119-120). Is Sutherland implying that, of the 307-312 range, we should not consider a date before early 310 for these London Sol issues?

I think I've asked this same question about half a dozen times. I wonder if Cloke and Toone have light to shed. I don't (yet) own that book.

[Victor]

I think Sutherland just gives a broad range because the series as a whole might have been struck during that period, but dated the Sol closer to 310.

Cloke and Toone date the series from the end of 309 to early 310 until 311. They have a little on the introduction of the Sol coinage circa 310 and talk about the vision -- he "propagated a story that he had experienced a divine vision that proclaimed his fitness to rule" They also talk about how this was the same time that Constantine decided that he was descended from Claudius II; whose patron was Sol. They also speculate that the Sol coinage might also allude to his father's liberation of London, commemorated on the medallion from the Arras Hoard with a reverse legend of REDDITOR LVCIS AETERNAE

electrotype of the medallion

see "In Praise of Later Roman Emperors" pg 249  "one of the biggest footnotes ever" for a discussion on this vision and the coinage -- "a fundamental change in Constantine's coin types can be observed precisely in 310."