★ Unpublished and Seemingly Unique ★

Constans AV Solidus. Antioch, AD 337-347. FL IVL CONSTANS PERP AVG, pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust to right / GLORIA ROMANORVM, emperor on horseback to left, raising right hand, turreted figure kneeling to right before, proffering wreath; SMANTΓ in exergue. RIC VIII -; C. -; Depeyrot -; for similar type, cf. Roma XVI, 820 (Constantius II). 4.75g, 21mm, 12h.

Good Extremely Fine; perfectly centered. Unpublished and seemingly unique, an important addition to the corpus of Neo-Flavian coinage.

Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XXIII, 25 March 2022, lot 1087.

The third and youngest son of Constantine I ‘the Great’ and Fausta, Constans was made Caesar in AD 333 when he was only ten years of age, joining his elder brothers Constantine II and Constantius II in the purple. The death of Constantine I near Nicomedia in AD 337 represented the end of a period of internal peace under the rule of the famous emperor, who had governed alone for the last thirteen years of his thirty-one year reign. Initially, power passed to five men, his three sons Constantine II, Constans and Constantius II and their half-cousins Delmatius and Hanniballianus, whom they quickly conspired to murder. In the tripartite division of the empire which followed, Constans was given control of Italy, Illyricum and Africa.

After Constans received Thrace and Macedonia upon the death of his cousin Dalmatius, who had been earmarked to rule those provinces, Constans and his brother Constantine II quarrelled, the latter complaining that as the elder brother he had not received his due. Constans agreed to hand over the African provinces in order to preserve the peace, but relations worsened, culminating in Constantine II’s ill-fated invasion of Italy, Constans’ territory, in AD 340. Constantine II died in Aquileia, leaving Constans to inherit Hispania, Britannia and Gaul, where he waged successful campaigns against the Franks and in Britain.

Constans would rule the western Roman empire for the next ten years, until his general Magnentius declared himself Augustus with the support of the troops on the Rhine frontier. Constans attempted to flee to Hispania, but was killed by the usurper Magnentius’ supporters in Helena in southwestern Gaul, thus somewhat fulfilling an alleged prophecy made at his birth which said he would die ‘in the arms of his grandmother’, who shared a name with the town.

On this unpublished and seemingly unique coin, Constans is the picture of victory and power: he performs the ritual of the imperial adventus, a ceremony which would mark the emperor’s victorious arrival in a city following their accession or a military campaign. The event is immediately recognisable from the archetypal gesture of greeting in the raised right hand of an emperor on horseback. This particular type is engraved in a lively and decorative style, and elements such as Constans’ flowing cape, the horse’s bouncy waved tail and the vivid expressions of the characters all contribute to an engaging scene.

Constans is met by a kneeling city-goddess, although being as this was the territory of his brother Constantius II and given that the reverse legend seems to bear out that this is a generic type rather than one referring to a specific event, it seems unlikely that Constans himself would ever have visited Antioch, let alone in a formal and ceremonial capacity.