Need Constantine Coin Images For College Thesis

to the Community!

@FVRIVS RVFVS
Oh, ok, cannot argue with that, I too have not seen such associations, I was not looking for them specifically, my interest is Constantinvs Maximvs, I am trying to understand the reasons for some of his actions

Finding the reasons behind the actions of Constantine at this late date are difficult at best to fathom
While Constantine surely promoted the interests of the Christians he did not aggressively do so but by the "Edict of Toleration" sought to remove the restraints on them. Edward Gibbon points out that within a generation of the edict that while all religions were to be tolerated that extended only so far ! If you were Christian your religion needed to adhere to the official "orthodoxy". The penalty for heresy in the Church was death ! Many early adherents to variations in doctrine were forced to flee the empire and gave birth to early communities of Christians in places like Mesopotamia and lands beyond the Roman frontier in Europe.
Often forgotten is that when St Augustine of Hippo lay dying in a city surrounded by an army of Vandal barbarians those barbarians were flying banners that bore the Christian cross ! They were Arian Christians converted by exiles from Rome in Germania.
When the prophet Muhammad first learned the stories of the Bible from Jews and Christians in Medina it was from people exiled from their own homelands for religious beliefs !
Finally it should be remembered that just like his father Constantius I, Constantine the Great was actually deified by the Roman Senate ! Unlike his father he was supposedly baptized while on his deathbed by a Christian priest. Whether he was actually still breathing at the time is unknown.
What is known is that the priest was an "Arian" Christian priest
The truth at this distant time will ever be elusive

The prices today absolutely astound me ......
Of course these two aren't as nice but still were affordable enough that I have absolutely no memory of the price tag
(Less than $100 apiece I am very sure)
To be honest I had no memory of the Chi Rho symbols either until now !
But when I purchased them at New England Coin Shows long ago they were for consolation purposes
Since no Romans were available on my meager budget
Lucky me !
What would a poor boy do today without ebay ?




67.28 grams 41-2mm and 35.48 grams 36mm

If you want a real puzzle try pondering this coin
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces66913.html
Over one hundred years ago numismatists dated this denarius as being issued the month before the assasination of Julius Caesar (ie February)
The reverse attribution identifies it as the Roman dictator Sulla awaking from a dream
But does it really ?
The goddess descending is obviously Luna by the crescent veil she holds
Luna is a goddess associated with the spirit world since Romans believed the dead exist as mere shadows in the darkness which vanish by the light of dawn
The winged Victory seems to be waving a palm branch over the reclining figure (magic wand ?) who is arising from what appears to be a bed of sticks (funeral pyre ?)

Some imaginative scholars think that the coin does not predate the assasination but is actually from the same month of March famous for the Ides
So the arising figure would not be the dictator Sulla but actually the dictator Caesar rising ?
A resurrection scene ?
If you really want to go deep look at the earring on the obverse portrait of Venus
What do you see ?
Strange

@ antwerpen2306
fascinating!
so the chi-rhos before Constantine simply abbreviated another word?

As Sigmund Freud (probably never) said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Sometimes an XP monogram is just an XP monogram. There are an awful lot of Greek monograms on various coins and only so many letters in the alphabet. Context is critical.

@CC, we have discussed this subject several times in the past. If you use the search box in the upper left hand corner of your screen and the keywords CHI RHO, you will see several, of which one of these is an early one and one is from this past June:

http://goccf.com/t/109793
http://goccf.com/t/318092