Bronze follis (20 mm; 3.73 g) of the Roman emperor Constantine I "the Great" (r. 306-337 CE), minted at Aquileia, 316-17. On the obverse is the laureate bust of Constantine. On the reverse is the sun god Sol, shown with his usual radiant crown and holding a globe.
At the time this coin was struck, Constantine was master of the western half of the Empire, having defeated his rival Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312). The following year, he and the Eastern emperor Licinius had jointly issued the Edict of Milan, which provided for religious toleration and ended official persecution of Christianity, now a "permitted religion" (religio licita), in their domains. This coin, however, shows no obvious signs of the changing religious landscape. Sol, in his manifestation as the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus), was widely popular in cult and had been the patron deity of the earlier emperor Aurelian, who styled himself "Restorer of the World" (Restitutor Orbis). It is possible that Constantine, whatever his personal religious leanings after the Milvian Bridge, thought it politically savvy to retain traditional solar imagery on his coinage so as not to alienate his pagan subjects. Another possibility, not incompatible with the first, is that Constantine identified the Christian God with Sol, both being understood as all-seeing, all-powerful deities who favored his cause and furnished victory in battle.
Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic
