Religious Coins From Around The World

SHAME on me for forgetting that Italy, always proud of its herit age, has featured their past gods on their modern coinage. 50 Lire coin 1959 featuring an image of Vulcan.

Better late then never.


Very nice!

Still need to image some of my Roman coins, but I had an image of this one handy:

Rome, Julian II "The Apostate"
361-363
SECVRITAS REIPVB, two stars above bull
Antioch mint



A bit of background: Constantine's father Constantius Chlorus was initiated into the Tetrarchy, destined to become emperor when senior emperors Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in 305 after their 20 year tenure. In order to secure the tetrarchy, he was compelled to divorce Constantine's mother Helena and marry Maximian's daughter Theodora. Constantine thus had numerous half-siblings, many of whom he placed at various prestigious posts in the government. When Constantine I died in 337, he was succeeded by his three young (teenage through mid 20s) sons, Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans, but their older cousins were left in many positions of power. Thus, they secretly ordered the execution of the entire "superfluous" cousins from their grandfather's second marriage. Two young brothers were spared on account of their age; Gallus and Julian. The Constantine boys came to regret their actions, and Gallus and Julian were given a cushy upbringing in the imperial court.

Unlike Gallus, Julian's tutor was a pagan. Over time, Julian came to distrust his Christian upbringing, and also to resent his cousins for their increasingly tyrannical rule. He was nominated as Caesar and heir to the throne in 355 when Gallus was executed for being an insolent twerp. Julian and Constantius II butted heads in 360, but Constantius fell ill and died before the civil war, nominating Julian as his successor.

Upon becoming emperor, Julian shocked the whole Roman world by publicly denouncing his Christian faith; declaring that Sol was the "true" God, and that he would dismantle Christianity's privileged status while also "draining the swamp" and massively reducing the bureaucracy established by Constantine -- the ultimate goal being the reversion to the Principate style government of Marcus Aurelius. His vision was cut short when just two years later he took a spear to the liver while battling against the Persians. Julian was the last pagan emperor of Rome, and the only one to apostasize.

The coin itself means "Security of the Republic" and is believed to represent an interpretation of a curious astrological event that happened in the early summer of 360 AD:

http://www.faintich.net/planetsym.htm

Copper Medal struck for the Assembly of the Clergy of France in 1735

"Religion and Peace"

I found the description in an old French book
"Mercure de France, dedie au Roy - Septembre 1735" - Guillaume Cavelier, Paris 1735, Avec Approbation & Privilège du Roy

OBV: Religion impersonated & standing, to the left an altar on which burns the holy fire; to the right a "trophy of arms" - in the air a pigeon holding an olive branch

REV: Angels holding an inscription that escaped the attention of the medal maker ? or was removed ? Perhaps it was: "Religion and Peace", a rather unusual combination of issues in many centuries of human history

Very nice!

Interesting that the Vatican engraver (apparently) borrowed from an earlier tradition where fides was a pagan god.

Well done!