RIC says that this type; which was reserved for Constantine alone, suggests that Constantine, “so strongly based in Gaul, was still an object of special respect and even perhaps of special hope.”
This coin is even more interesting because the ancient writer Photius tells a story of how Constantine had to fight a lion...even though I don't believe this event actually happened. I think it is a rhetorical invention meant to make Constantine seem more heroic and compare him to Hercules.
“At that time Maximin, governor of Asia Minor,who happened to be there, determined to lay a plot against the youth and set him to fight with a savage lion. But Constantine overcame and slew the beast…”
Constantine I
A.D. 307- 308
26mm 7.8g
CONSTANTINVS P F AVG; laureate head right.
VIRTVS PERPETVA AVG; Hercules strangling the Nemean Lion; club below to right.
In ex. S T
RIC VI Ticinum 99
