2

Seeing and Reading the Sons of Constantine

Preliminary Remarks

Earlier studies of Constantius II’s reign have tended to dismiss a great deal of the available source material for the period, in particular for the years up to the defeat of Magnentius at which point the history of Ammianus Marcellinus supplies a narrative (353–361¹) for the events of Constantius II’s rule as sole Augustus. Positions of prejudice towards certain forms of evidence, for example, panegyrics and patristic/ecclesiastical texts, have proven to be long-standing and difficult to change,² and have derived in part from the misguided idea that ancient historiography was a largely objective medium with a clear set of rules governing both its composition and its reception. These assumptions led the later Roman Empire’s most widely regarded modern commentator to proclaim Ammianus’ presence – in a discernible tone of relief – “a priceless boon”, following the all too brief narratives of the Latin epitomators, the “flowery and uninformative panegyrics” of the “pagan” rhetoricians Themistius and Libanius, the “contemporary polemical treatises” of Athanasius of Alexandria and Hilary of Poitiers, and the histories on the “ecclesiastical affairs” by writers from the early fifth century.³ Transformations in the nature of research regarding emperorship in the later Roman world (see Chapter 1) have seen such attitudes largely curtailed, and have led to previously neglected sources, including panegyrics, coins and historical epitomes rehabilitated as indispensable in the study of the period. This chapter considers the principal sources of a non-historiographic or non-literary orientation for the reigns of Constantine’s sons and considers the main issues, advantages and problems involved in studying them. With regard to portrayals of the emperor and the imperial family, this chapter takes inspiration from the meta-distinction raised by Jan Willem Drijvers in his discussion of the emperor Jovian (r. 363–364) between an “Auto-image” deriving from a source associated in some way with the emperor and his administration, and a “Hetero-image” created – in the words of Drijvers – “by others, that is those created from outside the imperial system”.⁴ Auto-images were disseminated in a range of literary, material and visual media, including imperial pronouncements (letters from the emperor’s person and legal constitutions, frequently one and the same thing)⁵ and material artefacts such as public monuments, inscriptions, statues, portraits, coins and medallions. In basic terms, these sources deployed the political ideology of the ruling imperial house. The creation of an auto-image suggests the involvement of the emperor at some stage, although quite how much involvement is a matter of debate,⁶ and varied from source to source as we discuss below. Among examples of hetero-images, Drijvers privileges secular and ecclesiastical historiographical sources, and “orations in honour of the emperor”.⁷ However, as Drijvers himself acknowledges, the distinction between auto- and hetero-images does not map neatly onto all examples. This is particularly true in the case of imperial orations where a variety of factors, including the question of what Johannes Wienand has termed “the social position of the speaker at court”⁸ and the extent of an orator’s familiarity with the prevailing ideology of imperial court, come into play. In the case of panegyrics, Drijvers notes that they largely “reflect and respond to official imperial policy and are therefore rather a mixture of auto- and hetero-image rather than exclusive hetero-image”.⁹ This and the following chapter adopts the binary distinction between auto-image and hetero-image as an initial way of managing the sources for the period 337–361, although it draws attention to and discusses those sources where the distinction is not so clearly identifiable, particularly in the case of panegyrics which are discussed in Chapter 3.

With this point in mind, two recent studies of Constantine I have exemplified the new directions taken by research in the areas of imperial self-representation, imperial authority and political legitimacy, in addition to demonstrating dynamic new approaches in handling the types of sources identified above. Johannes Wienand’s monograph from 2012 (Der Kaiser als Sieger) examines the emergence and transformation of Constantine’s imperial image and pays close attention to the development of Constantine’s portrayal as a triumphal ruler. The enshrining of a Roman general’s military prowess and achievements in the ritual of a public triumph had been clearly “mapped out” (vorgezeichnet)¹⁰ – to cite Wienand directly – during the time of Rome’s expansion and consolidated subsequently in the period of the Republic. According to Wienand’s thesis, it was during the imperial period that the ritualised celebration of an emperor’s military success was transformed into “a highly flexible instrument of political communication”.¹¹ This intensified during Constantine’s reign as he set about establishing his legitimacy by overturning a hitherto established prohibition that condemned victorious celebrations following times of civil war in order to commemorate his defeat of rival Romans, Maxentius in 312 and Licinius in 324. Wienand traces the development of Constantine as a victor in a variety of sources that played key roles in communicating images of imperial representation, mainly panegyrics and coinage (coins and medallions). While his study is deeply attentive to the range of contextual questions that arise individually from such sources, Wienand is also successful in demonstrating that communicative strategies of imperial representation were shared across different source types. All such sources, he notes, have a “political horizon”, and require investigation of their symbolic and performative logic as communicative media.¹² Wienand’s approach highlights, therefore, the limited application of the binary distinction proposed by Drijvers for panegyrics and other encomiastic texts when viewed in relation to other sources engaged in communicating and negotiating imperial images.

Following Wienand’s study, Noel Lenski’s Constantine and the Cities from 2016 raises several additional considerations that should become central to analysing sources pertaining to imperial representation for Constantine’s immediate successors. To begin with, Lenski highlights the importance of viewing the sources for imperial presentation in the framework of reception theory. He draws on the formative essay by Stuart Hall entitled “Encoding/decoding” which analyses the “politics of signification” in relation to television messaging in order to highlight the different forms of interpretation or “readings” that take place when a “message” is received by a mass audience.¹³ As Lenski reiterates, Hall identified three readings that follow the process of communication, and which arise from the fact that the signs (= “words, images, sounds”) encoded in a message are received by audiences “who are never homogenous and whose knowledge and assumptions never map perfectly onto those of the subject … [which results in] the essential disparity between subject and audience, the decoding of these messages never follows inevitably from encodings”.¹⁴ These readings comprise the hegemonic reading, whereby the recipient “takes the connoted meaning” of a message “full and straight”¹⁵; followed by the negotiated reading which “accords the privileged position to the dominant reading of events while reserving the right to make a more negotiated application to ‘local conditions’”¹⁶; and finally, the oppositional reading according to which “it is possible for a viewer perfectly to understand both the literal and the connotative inflection given by a discourse but to decode the message in a globally contrary way”.¹⁷ Hall notes the important role played by the professional class (e.g. broadcasters) who encode messages signified hegemonically but who operate “with ‘relatively autonomous’ codes of their own”.¹⁸ In a late Roman context, Lenski draws parallels with panegyrists, moneyers, legal scholars, artists and poets who, at a professional level, “engage in an interpretive process in dialectic with the rulers and policy makers on whose orders they operate”.¹⁹ This “abstract schema” is then brought to life by Lenski when applied to the labarum, the military standard (vexillum) of Constantine’s army and the different ways the labarum was “read” – either as a christogram or as a staurogram – in sources pertaining to its interpretation, in addition to the varying degrees of primacy accorded to the sign on Constantinian coinage by imperial moneyers. Therefore, even during the initial stage of the sign’s encoding, it was “imbued with ambiguities – regarding both its form and its significance – by the professionals who were responsible for transmitting Constantine’s message to the broader public”.²⁰ The broader point of Lenski’s analysis appears to be two-fold. First, he is concerned to unpick the operation of imperial power in the later Roman world and expose the question of that power’s intersubjective status which he defines as “a matter of negotiation and mutual agreement”²¹ between the ruler and the ruled. In other words, the exercise of imperial authority was a dynamic exercise and depended as much on how subjects interpreted (by either accepting or rejecting) power as on the ability and willingness of the emperor to exercise his authority in the first place. Second, is Lenski’s wish to avoid an interpretation of Constantine determined by “the pursuit of fixity”,²² namely to reject the notion that an essential and stable portrait of the emperor can be recovered from the sources. Instead, Lenski focuses on the transformations to Constantine’s imperial image that took place during his reign by isolating the key moments that influenced how he was portrayed to the Roman public. Thus, “[f]ar from remaining static in his pursuits and self-presentation, [Constantine] shifted his agenda at key moments in his reign that are still perceptible in the source record”.²³

The studies of Wienand and Lenski comprise sophisticated ergo exemplary handling of the source material pertaining to imperial self-representation, and this study takes inspiration from both authors, not least in terms of their deeply contextualised approach to analysing the sources. While certain aspects of the sons’ reigns were different from their father’s time, not least that all three emperors were born, raised and ruled as Christian monarchs in distinction to Constantine whose transformation into the role of a Christian emperor became a central feature of his public persona, several features remained constant, including the promotion of the emperor as a triumphal ruler, as a law-maker and as a mediator of the providence bestowed on the empire by divine favour. The following section surveys a selection of the principal sources responsible for conveying imperial images during the reigns of Constantine’s sons that can be bracketed under the term “Auto-image”. It is by no means exhaustive in that it seeks to raise issues relating to the study of a selection of sources for the study of Constantius II and his brothers. It is divided into sub-sections examining the following evidence types: Coinage and luxury artefacts, and letters and constitutions. The section addresses both broad and specific issues relating to the contexts, interpretations and limitations presented by source material of the “auto-image” type.

The Imperial Image: The Portable Monarch

Quite how many citizens of the empire saw the emperor in person is a moot point. However, they were almost certainly familiar with portrait representations of their ruler, which they apprehended in a variety of forms. The importance of imperial images for the public awareness of the emperor is neatly summarised by Eric Varner in the opening comments to his study of imperial portraiture:

As vital expressions of political authority and prestige, imperial portraits permeated all aspects of Roman society. Representations of the emperor and his family were prominently displayed in civic, sacred, and domestic spaces throughout the empire and were carefully manipulated and disseminated in order to reach multiple audiences. The power of these images lay in their ability to speak to disparate members of society, from the illiterate and slaves through the most educated members of the Roman elite.²⁴

Although Varner’s study primarily addresses imperial portraiture as statuary, his comments can be applied profitably to other instances where the emperor’s portrait bears political authority. Indeed, it was the case that all images of the emperor were political: “the emperor’s image had never been merely a personal portrait. Rather, from the time of Augustus it had served as a symbol of the Roman Empire and its well-being”.²⁵ Coins were fundamental in this regard,²⁶ since they were “the only way of circularizing the whole population with images of their rulers”.²⁷ The importance of coins as evidence is well-known and widely appreciated by historians. Their contemporaneity and abstracted portrayal of personalities and events frequently complement evidence supplied by other sources.²⁸ However, we should avoid assigning coinage a complementary role alone as ancient historians invariably tend to do when discussing coins. As sanctioned artefacts of government, coins indicate a great deal about both the posturing and realities of a political situation during a given period. In the words of Christopher Howgego, “in periods of autocracy [coinage] generally present the official line” on events.²⁹ The corpus of coinage issued by the mints under the control of Constantine’s sons represents a central source for the study of their reigns in light of its relative chronological and geographical integrity for the period stretching from the late 330s right up to the early 360s.³⁰ The situation described by John Kent in his preface to the volume of the Roman Imperial Coinage (vol. 8) dedicated to the family of Constantine I that, “the coinage of the middle years of the fourth century A.D. is common to all metals, but it is among the least known series of antiquity”,³¹ has thankfully improved over the last number of years. Johannes Wienand has been a key figure in developing awareness of the significance of Constantinian coinage, largely as a result of his publications that unite numismatic, art historical and ancient historical approaches to the study of coinage, fields that have traditionally taken disparate approaches to their subject. Wienand has also theorised about the relationship between the economic and representational roles of late Roman coinage by linking coinage with other instances of performative media in the purview of imperial representation, including panegyric. In his study of Constantine I from 2012, Wienand argues that the primary function of coinage was economic since its role was to defray public spending. However, he also proposes that the circulation of coinage was crucial for realising its communicative function since only through the use and handling of coins did the populace develop an awareness of the messages embossed on coins. He adds, conversely, that the economic function of coinage was dependent on the reception of the imperial image by the public since the embossed image of the emperor guaranteed the economic value of coins and their validity as a means of payment for a wide variety of goods and services.³² John Casey’s earthy evaluation of the association between the economic value of ancient coinage and the legitimacy of the ruling monarch is worth quoting at this point:

It is unlikely that the bulk of the population, labouring in the fields, elbow deep in clay in the potteries, or sweating in the forests to fell timber for the construction of fleets, gave much thought to the nuances of imperial numismatic ideology; their concerns were with coins as money. To this extent, if the coins had the right head on the obverse and were accepted by the taxman, the rent collector and the baker, all was well. We are in all probability dealing with a phenomenon addressed to an elite to reconcile them to the status quo rather than to influence their minds about things which, in the last analysis, would be decided by the loyalty of the forces or external military events.³³

As Kent noted, the period of the Constantinian dynasty following the death of Constantine I saw the minting of coinage across all forms of precious (gold, silver) and base (copper, bronze) metals. Indeed, the period is highly significant from a numismatic point of view as it witnessed the revival of silver coinage,³⁴ and the introduction of a base metal coin in three denominations, one in bronze and two in base billon (i.e. low-grade silver alloy).³⁵ The production of coinage took place in mints across the empire. The overall operation of the empire’s mint facilities lay under the control of the imperial government and the administrative figurehead of coin production was the comes sacrarum largitionum (Count of the Sacred Largesse). As Wienand notes, the Count was a member of the imperial consistory and was therefore close to the emperor. He was charged with overseeing the collection of public revenue (taxes, confiscations, duties) and public expenditure, the latter involving the principal contexts for the distribution of coinage and high-value prestige items, including medallions. Wienand lists these expenditure contexts as regular payments (stipendia) to the army, one-off payments (donativa) to the army to mark celebratory events (indeed, the army was the primary consumer of late Roman coinage and coin design frequently had the army in mind as its principal audience), donations (congiaria) to the populace and payments (largitiones) to high-ranking members of the civil and military administrations.³⁶ Beneath the Count was a complex network of officials involved in the production and distribution of coinage stretching from the central government to the provincial/diocesan level, and down to the heads of individual mints (procuratores monetarum) and their staff.³⁷

The subject of coin production raises the thorny question regarding who was responsible for the choice of images and text appearing on coinage. This is a complex matter that yields no easy answer. As Wienand has argued, any discussion regarding how coinage was designed, i.e. who was involved in the selection of images and texts and the factors informing their selection, must acknowledge that the process was complex in order to avoid a “one size fits all” explanation for all coins and medallions.³⁸ However, the overarching concern in the production of all types of coinage was the legitimation of the ruling elite. Older scholarship, as Kevin Butcher has expertly highlighted, regarded the distinction between those who chose coin types (the authority) and those who received them (the audience) in fairly straightforward terms as the uncomplicated promotion of an imperially sanctioned message. By contrast, recent commentators have developed more semantically aware tools of analysis resulting in a better understanding of the processes of legitimation that underlay the production of state coinage, specifically the manner in which the legitimisation of the ruling authority sat alongside a desire on the part of coin producers to honour the emperor in a manner that reflected the audience’s expectations of imperial power,³⁹ in other words the essence of the intersubjective relationship that lay at the heart of the configuration of authority in the late Roman world.⁴⁰ This interpretative approach owes a great deal to Jon E. Lendon’s formative study from 1997 that examined the prevailing honour culture of the Roman world. Lendon’s work alerted commentators to the importance of honour as a reciprocal process for maintaining both the authority and the stability of government in the Roman Empire.⁴¹ The role that coinage played in this process is neatly encapsulated in the words of Christopher Howgego, who has framed the debate in the following way:

The question of who chose coin types would have little importance were it not for the movement to interpret Roman coin types as systematic and deliberate official propaganda … The question may be side-stepped by referring simply to the undoubted ‘political themes’ on coinage, rather than to ‘propaganda’ (which carries the implication of a deliberate attempt to persuade, rather than say, to honour).⁴²

This is an important observation that allows us to apprehend coin design as a concern of high importance for the emperor and his government without reverting to anachronistic descriptions regarding its “propaganda value”. The recognition of an honorific as opposed to a “direct messaging” basis for the production of coinage – i.e. the idea that those producing coins did not seek exclusively to persuade recipients of the fitness of the emperor’s portrayal but also sought to honour the emperor⁴³ – augments our understanding of the role of coinage in affirming the idea of legitimate rule.

The political conditions fostered by dynastic rule in the early years of the sons’ reigns and the period of the dyarchy following the death of Constantine II facilitated the production of similar and on occasions identical coin types across the sons’ territories. The reform of bronze coinage that took place during the mid-to-late 340s was a co-ordinated venture by both Constantius II and Constans’ administrations and the new denominations⁴⁴ produced by the imperial mints – conventionally discussed according to a scale of three weights designated by nineteenth-century numismatists⁴⁵ – were united by a reverse legend or “slogan”, FEL(ix) TEMP(orum) REPARATIO, “The Return of Fortunate Times”.⁴⁶ The variety of reverse types associated with this series – namely the images and devices on the tail side beyond the incorporation of this optimistic legend – was considerable and the two emperors minted coins with images in line with their political concerns and imperial self-representation.⁴⁷ However, as Werner Portmann notes, while the five reverse types are linked to obverse portraits of both emperors, disparities in the number of respective pairings indicate that certain reverse images were privileged by one brother even though they were partially coupled to the portrait of the other brother.⁴⁸ The controversial reputation which the FEL TEMP REPARATIO series has acquired among numismatists and ancient historians in recent years makes it particularly well-suited to the concerns of this section and its task of highlighting a range of considerations attending the evidential value of coinage.

Late Roman coinage is viewed as “semantically diverse”,⁴⁹ and the FEL TEMP REPARATIO series is arguably one of the finest examples of coinage from the period that advertised richly detailed messages. Indeed, it has been remarked that the reverses of these bronze issues display both greater creativity and novelty than the reverses of gold and silver coins from the same period, which confined themselves largely to images of the emperor in victorious guise.⁵⁰ While coin reverses frequently convey a bewildering amount of detail in a compact space, the successful interpretation of legends and images requires contextualisation in their historical moment of design and distribution. Non-numismatic sources may help in this task. Frequently, however, such sources are neither available or if extant what they offer by way of context fails to supply a neat explanatory reading for the details on coinage. The latter point is especially pertinent in the case of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO series. On the basis of a slender and far from straightforward range of panegyrical and historiographical sources, modern commentators have advanced a variety of ideas regarding the meaning of the reverse legend and images which, in some instances, differ significantly from one another. A partial explanation for this may arise from the nature of academic self-promotion and the careerist demands that require the proposal of a novel thesis and/or refutation of previous ideas, although the prevailing reason in this case I suggest is the “open-endedness” – the semantic ambiguity – of the images and legend.

Additional consideration of the series appears in Chapter 5, but for the present discussion, the following technical features are noted here. The series is characterised by innovations in both its obverse portraiture and reverse types. Regarding the portraits of the emperors, the issues from the first series of FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins include a rare obverse portrait of a right-facing emperor wearing a pearl diadem, dressed in a military cuirass under drapery, and holding a globe, which was produced for both Constantius II and Constans.⁵¹ However, the series’ principal reverse types remain the most eye-catching feature. According to the conspectus of bronze coinage by Philip Hill and John Kent,⁵² the earliest coin in the series was the (small) AE2 coin (Latin: aes = bronze) embossed with the reverse image of a large, helmeted figure (the emperor?) carrying a spear leading a smaller figure out of a hut situated beneath a palm tree: This type (weighing 4.2–4.5g) was minted for both Constans and Constantius II,⁵³ although it was particularly associated with Constans.⁵⁴ Also in this weight is the reverse type featuring the image of the emperor resting on a shield and holding a labarum; in front of the emperor are two captives wearing Phrygian caps who are standing or kneeling before him. This type was produced at all mints with the exception of Arles and Trier,⁵⁵ and is associated in particular with Constantius. Following these issues, the lighter AE3 denomination (2.5–2.7g) was minted bearing a reverse type that incorporates the image of a phoenix – “a great miracle of ancient Egypt”, and “the emblem par excellence of renewal”⁵⁶ – on a globe or pyre, which was “applicable to both emperors”⁵⁷ (Figure 2.1). And finally, the larger AE2 coin (5.2–5.5g) was produced with two distinctive reverses: One depicting the emperor holding in the one hand a phoenix on a globe and in the other a labarum and standing on a galley steered to the left by Victory⁵⁸ (Figure 2.2); and the other depicting a solider (the emperor?) spearing a fallen horseman. Significant variations are noted for both of these reverse types.⁵⁹ At certain mints, the galley type was restricted to Constans,⁶⁰ while the fallen horseman became associated with Constantius, especially since the horseman was depicted on some issues wearing a Phrygian cap, or even diademed⁶¹ (the member of the Sasanian royal family reportedly killed at the battle of Singara in 344?).⁶²

Figure 2.1 Bronze Coin, Trier Mint (RIC 8 Trier 154, no. 234): The image is taken from www.numismatics.org.ocre which is made available in this publication under the open database licenseFigure 2.2 Bronze Coin, Trier Mint (RIC 8 Trier 153, no. 212): The image is taken from www.numismatics.org.ocre which is made available in this publication under the open database license

The near-uniform striking of the coins in the names of both emperors, the sharing of types between mints across territories (albeit with some significant variations) and the minting of coins by one administration for the other, suggests sustained communication between the administrations of Constantius II and Constans. This, in turn, suggests that the issues had been assigned a clear role with regard to the matter of imperial representation. The FEL TEMP REPARATIO legend is common to all types and evidently served as a unifying slogan. The principal impression is an imperial government united in celebrating the “Return of the Good Times”, or something similar. The series appears, therefore, to have served an important role in the promotion of an ideology of unity – more correctly harmony (concordia) – that was important not just at this point in the 340s but to the imperial project as broadly conceived.⁶³

But what circumstances lay behind this paean? And, is it correct to think that the coins were the initiative of a unified imperial administration? The latter question is particularly pertinent since the early- and mid-340s were a fractious time for relations between the two emperors prompted in part by the emergent factionalism afflicting the Christian Church and in particular by imperial involvement in the handling of the cases of high-profile bishops as putative figureheads of these factions. With this in mind, it is worth reiterating that the contextualisation of coin legends commonly involves consulting other sources – usually literary and historiographical texts. However, as we noted above, this can be a far from straightforward task, especially so in the case of this series. When exactly coins with this legend were struck for the first time is a moot point. In an influential article from 1933, Harold Mattingly linked the coin emissions to the anniversary commemorating the eleventh century of Rome’s foundation in 348 (21 April 753 BC), an age or generation (saeculum) regarded as heralding a revival of Rome’s fortunes that was traditionally marked by religious observances and games.⁶⁴ While Mattingly’s analysis is marred by a binary approach to the apparent religious imagery of the reverse types (although fairly typical of the time), his article is compelling for two reasons, both of which have shaped subsequent interpretive efforts. First, the identification of the coins with an anniversary and second, the attempt to link the reverse types to sources beyond traditional points of reference for coins (in Mattingly’s case, he argues that the images borrow from the poetry of Vergil) such as marshal success (although he does this too). John Kent’s development of this argument rightly raised the problem presented by the claim of Aurelius Victor in his On the Caesars that the celebrations of the anniversary event of 348 were substantially downplayed. In his description of the thousand-year anniversary of Rome’s foundation in 248 during the reign of Philip (r. 244–249), the writer remarks that

in my time, the eleven hundredth anniversary passed by in the consulship of a Philip [Flavius Philippus, consul prior in 348⁶⁵], but it was celebrated with none of the customary festivities, so drastically has the concern for the city of Rome diminished day by day.⁶⁶

Kent, however, upheld the idea that the anniversary had been celebrated on the basis of the existence of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO series, and the fact that the legend and the images of the phoenix resonated with the central concern of the anniversary, an age of renewed fortunes.⁶⁷ He concludes that the initiative lay with Constans’ administration, naturally since the series commemorated the foundation of the ancient capital which lay in Constans’ territory, but was rolled out across the empire. Between these two contributions, Konrad Kraft proposed an earlier date of 345–346 and linked the reverse types not to abstracted imperial virtues but to specific events in the reigns of the two brothers, notably Constans’ settlement of Franks in Roman territory (the Hut type); Constans’ voyage to Britain in late 342–early 343 (the Emperor and Galley type) and Constantius’ campaigns against the Sasanian Persians (both the Falling Horseman type and Emperor with Two Captives type), specifically the Roman “victory” in the infamous night battle at Singara in 344 following which a member of the Sasanian royal family – the heir to the throne no less – was captured and killed (the variant of the speared horseman with diadem). Kraft’s evaluation of the images remains disputed since some of his conclusions, specifically the proposal regarding the settlement of Franks as the basis for the Hut type, are inferred from rather than directly addressed by the sources (e.g. Libanius’ Or. 59. 131–135; Firmicus Maternus, On the Error of the Pagan Religions 28.6; Amm. Marc. 17.8.3). However, the idea that coin reverses present stylised portrayals of events from an emperor’s reign remains an important consideration which requires further investigation.

What these and similar interpretations have in common is the idea that the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins were the products of “a harmonious empire, one political entity”.⁶⁸ Indeed, recent interpretations have pushed on even further, and proposed that the coins were instrumental in promoting an ideology of unity, specifically the promotion of a unified empire, at this point in the 340s.⁶⁹ This ideology appears to be substantiated by other sources, including legal constitutions issued by the two administrations (see Chapter 5), but also by Libanius’ panegyric of dual praise for both Constantius II and Constans from the same period (346–347) in which the eastern and western halves of the empire are spoken of as working together in harmony (Or. 59.168–172). Indeed, Werner Portmann has proposed that Libanius’ speech predates the coin series (which he dates to c. 344–345), and, while not a direct source for the series, is emblematic of the ideology of unity that characterised the public promotion of the Constantinian emperors during the mid-to-late 340s. Portmann argues that the coin series was conceived in light of Constans and Constantius’ reconciliation following the restoration of Athanasius to the see of Alexandria in 346. According to this line of argument, the reparatio of the legend refers to the restoration of a unified empire following the seeming rupture in diplomatic relations between the western and eastern halves of the empire in the aftermath of the ecumenical Council of Serdica in 343. Portmann argues that the idea of the coins being struck to commemorate the anniversary of Rome’s foundation is not backed-up by the reverse images which advertise Rome’s authority over foreign enemies (“foreign policy successes”) more than anything else. Instead, he proposes that in line with Kraft’s earlier argument, both Libanius’ oration and the coin reverses present stylised portrayals of the same military events from the reigns of the emperors, prominently Constantius’ battle against the Sasanians at Singara in 344 (Or. 59.99–120 = Falling Horseman), and Constans’ expedition to Britain (Or. 59.137–142 = Emperor and Galley), although it is notable that Portmann rejects the idea that the Hut type is a representation of Constans’ resettlement of Franks in the Roman Empire during 342 (?), preferring instead to develop the pastoral connotations of the type to argue that it depicts the emperor leading the figure of a bishop (dressed as a shepherd) away from his place of exile.⁷⁰ Portmann’s approach highlights clearly the way in which the interpretation of coinage can draw successfully on literary or panegyrical sources in order to illuminate the meaning of the “picture programme” (Bildprogramm) of a coin series.⁷¹ However, Portmann’s approach also highlights that attempts to map information from one medium onto another in the exercise of interpretation are far from straightforward and frequently have additional complications. For example, the reticence that has been (rightly) sensed in Libanius’ presentation of the battle of Singara, the orator’s unwillingness to call the defeat of the Sasanian troops an outright Roman victory in the traditional fashion of a panegyric, leads Portmann to challenge the suitability of the episode as the basis for the FEL TEMP REPARATIO issues that depict the majestic subjugation (Falling Horseman and Emperor with Two Captives) of stylised “Persian” figures.

Indeed, the majesty and triumphalism of the reverses for the entire series do not appear to tally with what is known about the campaigning seasons of Constantius II and Constans during the early-to-mid 340s. For Portmann, this is an example of the way in which imperial iconography manipulated the presentation of military engagements whereby “an insignificant, inconclusive skirmish can be raised to the level of a victory if official propaganda required it”.⁷² (Portmann’s call for further investigation of this tendency has been developed by Wienand whose study of the majestic gold medallion from Antioch depicting a triumphant Constantius drawn by quadriga has established that its ceremonial grandeur was derived from the rather unpropitious termination of the second siege of Nisibis by Shapur II’s forces in 346.⁷³) Portmann thereby reaffirms his original interpretation that the coins refer to the renewal of the Constantinian Empire under the joint rule of Constantius II and Constans following the fracture in diplomatic relations between the western and eastern halves of the empire. Portmann’s assessment has clearly influenced later interpretations of the series. Muriel Moser suggests that the military actions which are the focus of attention for both Libanius and the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins became in the mid-to-late 340s “stock motifs used in imperial communications to represent the empire(s) of Constans and Constantius”.⁷⁴

By contrast, a wholly different thesis is proposed by Konstantin Olbrich in an article from 2004. Here, he argues that the origin of the coins lay in a divided empire. Olbrich’s contribution highlights that on the matter of the interpretation of reverse types, conclusions can vary enormously between scholars. His method of analysing the coin series also demonstrates both the importance and attendant perils of a fine-grained approach in interpreting reverse types and the contribution that a contextual approach to coinage can play in exposing details (for example, the extent of diplomatic tensions between the two courts) hitherto not revealed by other sources of evidence. In summary, Olbrich’s proposal is that coins with the reparatio legend were first struck in Constans’ territory around 343 in contrast to the later date(s) traditionally proposed which is based on minting patterns in Antioch in the eastern half of the empire in the jurisdiction of Constantius II. Olbrich challenges this convention not only by proposing a much earlier date, but also by arguing for a date for the series’ genesis in the western empire, an argument which a numismatist like Kent shied away from on the basis that, according to his way of handling the evidence, such a conclusion could not be substantiated in a sufficiently adequate manner.⁷⁵

Olbrich’s date of 343 is, however, only one aspect of his thesis. The traditional alignment of the series with the eleventh saeculum of Rome’s foundation beginning in 348 is amended by Olbrich and his suggestion that the anniversary commemorated by the coins was rather the “Great Year” lasting 365 years that Livy (5.54.5; cf. 7.18.1) refers to in his account of the defeat of the Gauls by the dictator Camillus (388 BCE). The “Great Year” while not centennial was nonetheless calculated from the point of Rome’s traditional foundation (ab urbe condita) and was characterised as the point of the saeculum’s renewal.⁷⁶ As Olbrich points out, awareness of a 365-year period as the herald of major change was current at points during the fourth century, most prominently in the guise of the “pagan” prophecy which predicted the end of Christianity c. 394 (i.e. the battle of the Frigidus, calculated from 29 CE, the baptism of Jesus in the Galilee),⁷⁷ although he argues that this is a version of the “Great Year” transformed by Christian apocalyptic and opportunistically employed by pagan opponents, an argument independently corroborated by Alan Cameron.⁷⁸ Therefore, the year 343 marked the beginning of the fourth “Great Year”. Olbrich proposes that the leitmotif for the coinage of Constans is the phoenix, a symbol of rebirth whose place in the cultural memory of Roman society is epitomised in a passage from Tacitus’ Annals,⁷⁹ in which the bird, recently sighted in Egypt during the reign of Tiberius according to Tacitus, appears every 1,461 years.⁸⁰ The ability of the phoenix to renew itself was also taken by Christians from as early as the first century as a sign of Christ’s resurrection.⁸¹ The 1,461 years referred to by Tacitus is the Sothic cycle associated with the worship of Isis, which was held to (re-)occur over four periods of 365 years in duration. According to Olbrich, the phoenix was a recognisable symbol of this scheme and was employed on the series to denote the renewal of the fourth “Great Year” during the reign of Constans.⁸² Earlier emissions from provincial mints had also utilised the phoenix in the context of the return of a golden age,⁸³ and its association with eternity and renewal had clear precedents as far as Roman coinage was concerned. Olbrich emphasises an already well-established numismatic conclusion, namely that the phoenix is prominent on coins originating from mints in the western empire, notably the Emperor and Galley type and the Phoenix on Pyre and Phoenix on Globe types (the former was restricted to the mints in Trier, Arles, Rome and Siscia).⁸⁴ However, his explanation for the partiality of these issues in the west is different from any proposed previously.

343 was Constans’ decennalia: The ten-year imperial anniversary counting from his appointment as Caesar in 333 during the reign of his father. Such an occasion would traditionally be commemorated on coin issues. However, Olbrich argues that the series offered a variation in the portrayal of this traditional event. He notes correctly that the key issues associated with Constans, namely the Hut type and the Emperor and Galley type, both drew on epideictic imagery first associated with Constantine I, in particular the references that litter Eusebius of Caesarea’s In Praise of Constantine delivered to mark his tricennalia (336) in which the emperor is compared to both a shepherd and a helmsman who, in imitation of God, performs his service to his people and the state.⁸⁵ There is nothing amiss about this observation since the application of language and imagery first associated with Constantine to his sons was a central preoccupation in the development of the public personas of his immediate successors. However, the eccentric aspect of Olbrich’s thesis is the idea that this was done deliberately at the expense of Constantius II in a move which sought to promote Constantinian autocracy over Constantinian collegiality.

Athanasius is proposed as the primary influence behind this initiative. As Olbrich notes, Constans and Athanasius met on numerous occasions between 340 and 344. In fact, as Barnes has highlighted, Constans decided to take up the case of Paul of Constantinople and Athanasius as eastern exiles in the west, in 342.⁸⁶ The hardening of the period’s sectarianism, a symptom arguably of the imperial patronage shown to figures like Athanasius, may be seen in the events that followed the collapse of the Council of Serdica in 343, whereby the fall-out from the council fostered a further deterioration in diplomatic relations between the eastern and western territories of the empire. The putative nadir of this disunity is regarded as Constans’ epistolary threat to Constantius II from the year 345 over the fate of the deposed bishops, Athanasius and Paul (quoted in the fifth century by Socrates, Church History 2.22.5: See Chapter 5). However, should we take the account offered by Libanius in the final sections of his Or. 59 as a reliable description of events, the genuine nadir is the near collapse of commercial exchange between the two portions of the empire (Or. 59.170–171). Olbrich argues that Constans found the Alexandrian bishop to be a ready advisor, someone who was willing to assist him in the promotion of his authority over Constantius II during fractious times. Thus, Athanasius’ involvement was as the “spiritus rector” for the imagery of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coinage, specially his hand is suspected in the adaptation of the Eusebian model of divinely ordained autocrat and the role of the phoenix as the coinage’s Leitmotif for the “Great Year” of renewal that was inaugurated by the reign of Constans in the year of 343. Constans’ involvement with Athanasius in the reform of billon coinage was, Olbrich argues, intended to deliberately exclude Constantius II and undermine the imperial college. Olbrich derives this claim circumstantially, and a crucial piece of evidence for his argument is the description of the phoenix in the Physiologus, a work dated variously but with a terminus ante quem of the mid-fourth century which the Oxford Classical Dictionary defines as “an exposition of the marvellous properties of some 50 animals, plants, and stones, with a Christian interpretation of each”.⁸⁷ In the Vienna Physiologus, the phoenix is said to be of a size comparable to an island and covered with the allegorically significant number of 365 feathers.⁸⁸ The Physiologus’ author attributes this description to “the great Athanasius”, namely the bishop of Alexandria.⁸⁹ Olbrich links this detail to the charge brought against Athanasius in the 350s related by Ammianus Marcellinus (15.7.7–8) that “being highly skilled in the interpretation of prophetic lots or of the omens indicated by birds, [Athanasius] had sometimes foretold future events”. A further piece of evidence is marshalled in the form of the Vaticinium, a prophecy about the last world emperor named Constans from the Tiburtine Sibyl, a Latin sibylline work which was popular during the Middle Ages. The Vaticinium narrates the appearance of the last world emperor named Constans whose reign endures for 112 years and is marked by peace and prosperity, after which the Antichrist will appear in Jerusalem and herald the apocalypse.⁹⁰ Olbrich follows the conclusion of the detailed study by Hannes Möhring (Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit, from 2000) in identifying Constantine’s youngest son as the last world emperor and the derivation of the prophecy from Athanasius.⁹¹ Olbrich highlights the possibility that this prophecy was in some way connected to the tradition that the twelfth (thousand year) saeculum would mark the end of Roman rule on account of the fact that the addition of the duration of the last world emperor’s reign (112 years) to the dies imperii of Constans (337) results in the year 449, one year beyond the inauspicious centennial year of 448.

Let us take stock of Olbrich’s overall argument. According to his analysis, Athanasius was responsible for a political prophecy which promoted Constans, in the year of his decennalia, as the architect of a new, golden era of prosperity for the Roman Empire. This prophecy, which may have been part of an apocalyptic forecast prophesising Christ’s return in the following century, provided the intellectual foundation for the reform of the billon coinage bearing the FEL TEMP REPARATIO legend and reverse images comprising the Phoenix, Hut, and Emperor and Galley types. The association of all three motifs with the promotion of Constantine I’s imperial image indicates strongly that the coins were intended to evoke established features of Constantinian dynastic identity.⁹² Indeed, the phoenix enjoyed broad signification across a range of religious and imperial contexts, having been adopted by both Roman and Christian iconographies, while nevertheless sharing the same basic idea of renewal. For this reason, it was, therefore, well-suited as the leitmotif for the coinage.⁹³ Olbrich maintains that the promotion of Constans in this way was done deliberately to exclude Constantius II. As fanciful as this sounds, there were precedents for the promotion of the imperial image in mediums of praise and honour (and coinage was above all an honorific medium⁹⁴) which intentionally undermined the status of a co-ruler through exclusion. Oration 1 (“On the Love of Mankind (philanthropia) or Constantius”) by Themistius for Constantius II is one such example, in which the orator effectively snubbed Constans as a result of the “political situation” of the time, as Christine Greenlee has lately argued. As Greenlee demonstrates, Themistius’ oration belongs squarely to the period of the early 340s: In precise terms, the oration was delivered in Ancyra during 342 in front of an audience that included the emperor himself. In his speech, Themistius emphasised that divine favour was shown to Constantius II alone (Or. 1.9b–c), while deliberately adopting models of comparison for Constantius that stressed his sole involvement in caring for those under his charge, comprising a number of pastoral examples, including a shepherd caring for his flock (9c–10c):

Themistius thus creates an image of Constantius as the care-taker of his subjects with no responsibilities to other rulers. It is a representation of unity between ruler and subjects promoted by the ruler’s love of mankind, not the ruler’s love for his co-ruler.⁹⁵

It is perfectly reasonable, therefore, to believe that Constans was also capable of a similar snub towards Constantius via his coinage. The wider implication of this is that both emperors and their administrations during the early-to-mid 340s fostered a “policy” of promoting themselves at the expense of the other in a way that consciously undermined the public image of the imperial college.

At the level of iconographic analysis, Olbrich’s discussion takes seriously the idea that reverse types could have more than one meaning. Thus, the semantic range of both the Hut and Emperor and Galley reverses conveyed stylised portrayals of actual events during the reign of Constans, namely the settlement of Franks and the journey to Britain, and an “allegorical” statement of imperial leadership in the guise of Eusebian models of shepherd and steersman, respectively. (The portrayal of Constans behaving imperially thereby reinforced the legitimacy of his tenure as the emperor of the entire western empire following his role in the death of his brother, Constantine II, in April 340.) Olbrich also argues that the association of Constans with reverses of dual significance – historical and panegyrical – reinforces the landmark nature of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO and its role in promoting Constans’ reign as especially blessed by divine providence. By comparison, Olbrich notes that the emissions associated with Constantius II, namely the Emperor with Two Captives and the Falling Horseman reverses, are “strangely pale and one-dimensional”.⁹⁶ In both instances, the reverse types denote imperial victory over eastern enemies and therefore align most naturally with Constantius’ numerous military engagements against the Sasanians at the limit of his eastern territory. To paraphrase Olbrich’s argument at this point, the dual historic-panegyric meaning characteristic of Constans’ coinage is, therefore, wholly absent from the FEL TEMP REPARATIO issues of Constantius II: The eastern emperor is portrayed solely as a victor, an essential feature of imperial rule but certainly not bearing the same complex meaning as Constans’ reverses. As Olbrich points out, the implications of the possible restriction of the reverses with dual signification to Constans alone are considerable,⁹⁷ although by far the most important issue concerns the date for the adoption of the billon reform in the eastern empire. The coin reform which began in the west c. 343 was only then – following Olbrich – adopted in the eastern empire by Constantius II in the wake of the restoration of relations between the emperors in 346–347. Olbrich notes that two bronze issues at eastern mints – Antioch and Nicomedia – served as preliminary instances of the adoption of Constans’ coin reform, both of which can be dated no earlier than 346.⁹⁸ Similar-sized bronzes to the FEL TEMP REPARATIO series were, therefore, adopted in the east from 346, but there was equivocation about the series’ legend and iconography as utilised in the west, in particular the issues depicting the phoenix. As a result, reverses suited to the representational requirements of Constantius II were adopted as and when the reforms were implemented in the east.

It should be apparent that aspects of Olbrich’s thesis are highly contestable. For example, the link between Athanasius’ role as “spiritus rector” for the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins bearing the phoenix or associated with the Eusebian typology of imperial leadership (which Olbrich considers Athanasius to have consciously taken over from the bishop of Caesarea) and the literary evidence presented by the Physiologus, Ammianus and the Vaticinium (the latter which in all likelihood refers to seventh-century emperor Constans II, following the recent analysis of Gian Luca Potestà⁹⁹) is tenuous at best and should not really be regarded as grounds for establishing the genesis of the money series. The question of whether Athanasius in fact took on the responsibility of developing models of leadership that derived from Eusebius, as Olbrich maintains he did intentionally, is open to debate in light of the likely tensions between the two individuals over a variety of issues, including the fate of Marcellus of Ancyra, a leading opponent of the bishop of Caesarea.¹⁰⁰ Correlative issues addressing broader points should also be challenged, for example, the extent of the “split” between the two brothers, which may very well have been real, but which did not impede the administrative functionality of the empire as a unified entity (see Chapter 5). Nevertheless, Olbrich’s argument raises the interesting idea that Constans sought to capitalise politically on his disagreement with Constantius II, a fact that certainly fits with what we know about Constans’ assertive emperorship and the internal rivalry of the Constantinian family.

Putting aside these features of his argument, Olbrich’s article draws attention to a crucial feature about the role of coinage in political messaging. However, in order to fully appreciate the contribution of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins in this area, we need to move beyond matters relating to reverse types and consider another key feature of the series, which incidentally receives barely any attention from commentators, namely its role in the monetary reform of late Roman economy. In comparison with precious metal coinage, bronze coinage had “virtually no intrinsic value”,¹⁰¹ but, as Richard Reece has pointed out, “If copper coinage was such an unimportant proportion of the mass of available value, why was so much of it produced in the later empire?”¹⁰² [The terms “copper” and “bronze” are frequently conflated by commentators to denote base metal denominations of coinage.] The answer, as Reece notes, lies in recognising the important role that bronze coinage played in enabling the Roman state to recover payments made in precious metal to servants of the state, principally members of the army:

… while everything that mattered happened in gold or silver coin – payment of soldiers and state servants – this valuable bullion had to be lured back to the state coffers by copper bait. The soldier was paid, and this was a constant concern of the state. The solider was anxious to spend his coin, but was not allowed to receive change if he took gold or silver to a shop for payment for a lower value. He therefore had to take gold or silver to a moneychanger and receive usable copper in return, whereby both were happy. The state had recouped its bullion, the soldier could spend his coin.¹⁰³

Bronze coinage, therefore, was instrumental to the operation of the Roman economy and kept its “wheels oiled”¹⁰⁴ by ensuring a constant, trickling return of bullion to the imperial treasury. Its circulation was highest in regions on the frontiers of the empire (e.g. Britain and Pannonia) where the largest numbers of troops were concentrated.¹⁰⁵ In light of this, the relationship between bronze issues and their reverse typology should be considered a little further. As Richard Reece has pointed out elsewhere,¹⁰⁶ the personification of the corn dole (Annona) was largely found on the reverses of bronzes from the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius: “This could be taken to suggest a degree of targeting for the message. There is more point in reminding the people who used bronze coins of the benevolence of the state than those who used mainly gold and silver”.¹⁰⁷ The people in question were overwhelmingly members of the Roman army. A similar observation may also be applied to the reverse types of those bronze coins in the reformed series from the late 340s. Irrespective of arguments proposing different impetuses and origins for these issues, all five dominant types convey clearly the image of an empire secure in the hands of the Constantinian emperors, guaranteed by the projection of their continued success in defeating foreign enemies of the state and expanding imperial territory. John Casey has pointed out that coins of low value tend to display “symbols evocative of a historic past … which, cumulatively, evoke a static ideology established by reference to a long historic past”.¹⁰⁸ While images in this series probably depicted recent or contemporaneous events – Constans journeying to the British Isles, or Constantius II overcoming Sasanian soldiers – they also represent recognisable tropes that formed part of Rome’s historical memory of expansion and martial success: Both these examples utilise races – Britons and Persians – residing at the limits of empire whose subjugation was a mark of Rome’s exceptionalism. It is justifiable then to view the legend and reverse types of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins as targeted for their primary users, namely soldiers and traders, and especially those in frontier areas. As Wienand has repeatedly highlighted, the communicative function of images and text on coinage was informed by the social context(s) for its distribution (therefore resembling the composition and delivery of panegyric).¹⁰⁹ The bronze coins belonging to the monetary reform of the 340s were not, therefore, simple commemorative pieces: The choice of metal, the distribution context and the reverse types suggest that these coins played a key role in conveying complex ideas relating to imperial legitimation to the very citizens who were instrumental in shaping the legitimacy of the emperor, namely the troops of the Roman army. By way of a reminder, the late Roman army was a key participant in the matter of determining imperial legitimacy. In his recent study of the emperor and the army in the late empire, Mark Hebblewhite has observed:

[coinage] formed a central pillar in imperial efforts to favourably portray the emperor to the army. It was valuable to the troops, portable and flexible in the ideas that it could convey, making it a perfect medium for carrying messages from the emperor.¹¹⁰

The circulation of bronze coinage was, however, notoriously slow. In conclusion, therefore, it would be best to reserve judgement regarding the immediacy of the “messaging” imparted by such coins. While audience remains a very important although unanswerable issue in definitive terms, the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins of the mid-to-late 340s indicate the important dual quality of Constantinian bronze coins. On the one hand, images were incontestably the choice of the elites – be they the choice of the emperor, his advisers or even his favoured bishops! – and were selected in order to “legitimate [themselves] in their own eyes”,¹¹¹ but on the other this process of legitimation required citizens to consent to the emperor’s authority, and in this regard coins which presented images of the emperor that collectively portrayed him stewarding the empire were intended to elicit agreement over an emperor’s fitness to rule from those in receipt of the coins.

Tokens of Legitimacy

Conspicuous spending was a necessary element, freely indulged, in political activities such as the foundation of cities, the building of churches, or the rewarding of officials and soldiers.¹¹²

John Kent and Kenneth Painter’s observation neatly summarises the central role that prestige items and artefacts played in mitigating the political challenges that characterised the first half of the fourth century. High-value items cast in precious metal, for example, gold medallions (sometimes also called multiples) and silver plates or platters, were distributed by emperors as ceremonial gifts (largitiones) to individuals at the highest ranks of the military and civil service in order to commemorate special occasions (for example, regnal anniversaries and military victories) but also to reward displays of loyalty during periods of political turmoil.¹¹³ However, gold and silver also had a practical role to play in the revival of the economy following the dissolution of the Tetrarchy and the emergence once again of dynastic rule. Constantinian emperors minted gold and silver coins in significant quantities: Indeed, there was a significant upturn in the production of gold coinage towards the end of Constantius II’s reign which may have been the result of increased social dominance of military officers.¹¹⁴ It is well-known that Constantine I introduced a new gold standard coin in the form of the solidus (struck at seventy-two to the Roman pound) in an effort both to facilitate his ascendency post-Tetrarchy and to boost the economy in the western empire after years of neglect and decline.¹¹⁵ However, it has also been noted that Constantine may have been following Tetrarchic precedent in this regard since the Tetrarchs of the late third century also took important steps to improve the circulation of gold coinage.¹¹⁶ The production and distribution of precious metal coinage were strictly controlled by the Roman government largely in part because payment in gold and silver coin was the main way in which the government settled salaries and made other significant payments in the interests of the state. As Reece has pointed out, however, the stringent control of gold and silver coinage stood in contrast to the “lavish disbursement” of gold and silver largesse for imperial anniversaries and other celebratory events.¹¹⁷

The medallions and silver plate produced during the reigns of Constantine’s sons present crucial evidence for understanding the role of the imperial image in this period. Rather than viewing these items as trifles and expensive fripperies, largitio artefacts represent an important aspect of the near-continuous dialogue that occurred between the emperor and the elites – military and civil – across the empire. These artefacts, therefore, offer a rare glimpse of one of the ways through which the imperial elite communicated with subordinates who were nonetheless also members of the elite. The recent study of gold medallions by Wienand has shed considerable light on the distribution context and political significance of the issues produced during the reigns of Constantius II and Constans, in particular the important role they played as gifts distributed to the highest ranking members of the civil service and military on occasions of imperial significance. He argues that the exceptional craftsmanship and high quality of gold medallions distinguished them from solidi. Among the examples discussed by Wienand is a medallion of exceptional quality produced at the mint in Antioch to commemorate the “victory” of Constantius following the end of the Persian siege of Nisibis in spring 346.¹¹⁸ The disparity between the defensive strategy pursued by Constantius which facilitated the withdrawal of the Sasanian troops from the walls of the city in Mesopotamia and the reverse image of Constantius on the medallion, where he is depicted standing in majestic apparel riding a quadriga in triumph and distributing largess, is considerable and to be explained in large part because “imperial victoriousness [had become] an intrinsic and permanent quality” of Constantinian emperorship.¹¹⁹ Hostilities between Roman and Sasanian troops during the 330s and 340s were rarely characterised by full-scale battles, and were more often defensive engagements such as the besieging of strategic cities on the frontier (see Chapter 6). However, these engagements played a central role in the representation of the emperor as “perpetually victorious”, and were fundamental in shaping the emergence of victory as an abstract quality belonging “by right” to the emperor. Therefore, while images of victory and triumph, such as the one on the reverse of the Antiochene medallion, could be understood in relation to specific events, they also served to convey a clear occasionally contextless message regarding the emperor’s fitness to rule. Like other coins produced in this period, medallions were tokens of legitimacy for the reigning monarch. Other gold medallions struck by the Antioch mint to commemorate the termination of the blockade of Nisibis include an issue weighing an impressive 41.9g which depicts both Constantius and Constans sharing a dual triumph on its reverse.¹²⁰ The image is accompanied by a legend which also names both Augusti. This was an image of collegial victory which is all the more significant in light of what we know about the fractious relationship between the two brothers that was at its zenith around the time of the Sasanian siege (346). The impression given by the medallion is that, according to Wienand, “triumphal rulership is not limited exclusively to Constantius but rather is attributed to both emperors, who are depicted in harmonious unity”.¹²¹ However, the obverse depicts Constantius II with an attendant legend that clearly illustrates his seniority (DN CONSTANTIVS MAX AVGVSTVS) and, therefore, his primacy as a lead victor.

Gift (largitio) items cast in silver represent another type of material benefaction that played an important role in the promotion and consolidation of the imperial image during the fourth century. Beyond their practical purpose (and attendant markers of social status) as items for dining and display, silver plates played a central feature in the ceremony that marked the distribution of imperial gifts to worthies by serving as the container for the principal donativum of gold and silver coins.¹²² Ruth Leader-Newby’s deeply insightful study of silverware from the period argues that largitio plates, given to chosen individuals to mark imperial anniversaries, played a crucial role in the dissemination of public images of the emperor further into the “private” domestic sphere of Roman life than ever before:

Just as the gold multiples were mounted as personal jewellery, we should perhaps imagine silver largitio vessels displayed proudly together with the rest of their owners’ silver tableware. In this way, one might argue, the emperor was integrated into the lives of his subject, as he had been through the imperial cult.¹²³

These were items of display and Leader-Newby also adds imperial largitio plates

in common with many late antique images of the emperor, offer not the portrait of an individual (with individual strengths and weaknesses) but the image of the office of emperor, replete with the connotations of sacred power and majesty which it had by then come to embody, regardless of the personality or talents of the holder.¹²⁴

Earlier fourth-century examples of anniversary dishes include a group of virtually identical silver largitio plates presented to mark the ten-year anniversary (decennalia) of Licinius. In their centre is a vota inscription (i.e. vows undertaken and vows to be fulfilled in the future by the emperor) – “As Ten, So Twenty” – familiar from coins, and a related rim inscription proclaiming “Emperor Licinius, May you always conquer”. These bowls are stamped NA, indicating that they were produced at the imperial mint in Naissus.¹²⁵

Constantinian emperors followed suit. A discovery of three silver plates among grave goods in Kerch (ancient Panticapaeum) in Crimea derives from the reign of Constantius II and bear portrait representations of the emperor. Leader-Newby has proposed that on account of “non-Roman cultural practices” – Panticapaeum was the capital of the Bosporan kingdom, a client state of the Roman Empire – the dishes were buried as grave goods rather than hoarded. No coinage was discovered alongside these particular largitio plates. Two of the plates contain a profile portrait of the emperor at their heart around which are inscribed the words, “On the occasion of the vicennalia [i.e. 343¹²⁶] of our lord the emperor Constantius”.¹²⁷ A parallel has been drawn between the imperial portrait of these plates and those of the emperor on coinage, and as Leader-Newby has suggested, the craftsman of the dish may have referred to a coin portrait as a guide.¹²⁸ Their preparation in a state-sponsored workshop is to be suspected, in light of the fact that the production of silver plate came under the authority of the Count of the Sacred Largesse. The third plate, now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, presents a remarkable portrait of the emperor that correlates with the image of Constantius as victorious monarch on the medallion issues from eastern mints such as those from Antioch (Figure 2.3). “Unnamed but generally identified as Constantius II”,¹²⁹ the frontal portrayal of the emperor at the centre of the dish is enhanced by the flattening of the plate’s entire scene as a result of the engraving process which used niello inlay and gilding. The iconography is at once both conventional and innovative. While older evaluations of silver plates have tended to dismiss their cultural significance as of minor importance, more recent commentators regard the contribution of the iconography on silver largitio plates from the late empire as crucial in mediating “prospective” images of the emperor to developing artistic formulations of imperial authority.¹³⁰ This is especially true of the Kerch plate with its frontal portrait of Constantius II together with its blended conception of classical and Christian images of victory. The emperor is depicted astride a horse. He is wearing a jewelled diadem, clothed in a short tunic and armour (segmenta), and is carrying a spear in his right hand. Behind the horse is a Roman foot soldier dressed in the manner of an imperial bodyguard,¹³¹ carrying a spear and a shield decorated with the Chi-Rho monogram. The emperor’s horse is trampling on the shield of a defeated enemy. In front of the emperor on horseback is Victory who holds a wreath and palm branch in anticipation of crowning the emperor. We tend – indeed, are probably meant – to read this scene as a narrative in which the emperor astride his warhorse leads his army into battle. In this task, the emperor is aided by his army and by Victory herself. However, it is a triumphant model that mobilises the model of Constantinian victory to its fullest extent: Literally “bringing up the rear” is a solider bearing the pre-eminent Christian symbol of the period, the Chi-Rho. To quote Leader-Newby:

Figure 2.3 Silver Largitio Bowl from Kerch (“The Triumph of Constantius II”): The image is used from www.hermitagemuseum.org Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

[the] use of the Christian symbol, the chi-rho, acknowledges the role of Christ as an enabler of that victory, and the victorious emperor as a model of Christ. At the same time, this evokes Constantine’s Christian vision at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD, highlighting the importance of Constantine as a pattern for all subsequent Christian emperors.¹³²

The engraving depicts the emperor processing to the viewer’s right, the direction of travel indicating departure (profectio) in contradistinction to arrival (adventus), which was also utilised on coin reverses to signal the emperor’s departure to fight enemies of the empire. Like instances of imperial arrivals in cities, the departure of the emperor was also a ritualised affair, “publicizing and displaying official travel and military campaigns”.¹³³ Although considered by some commentators to be an uncommon coin type, scenes depicting the departure of the emperor have demonstrable precedents on coin issues from the reigns of Trajan and Septimius Severus (to name only a selection), and were associated in particular with campaigns against the Parthians and northern barbarians.¹³⁴ In the case of the Constantinian emperors, coins with reverse types depicting scenes of the emperor departing on campaign appear to be a distinctive feature of the normative output of imperial mints.¹³⁵ Profectio issues frequently portray the emperor on horseback attacking the enemy, for example, the types with the reverse legend VIRTVS AUGVSTI produced for Constantine I,¹³⁶ or the remarkable DEBELLATOR medallions from Constantius II’s reign.¹³⁷ The largitio plate from Kerch evidently stands in this iconographic tradition; the expansion of the visual field of representation presents a narrative in which the emperor is portrayed as leading his army on campaign spurred on by Victory and Christ.

The Kerch plate is not strictly then only a depiction of Constantius as a triumphal emperor, a feature that was intrinsic to the iconography of rulership of the Constantinian dynasty. Instead, the plate’s engraving portrays the emperor departing on the eve of battle whose forthcoming success is presented as assured by the presence of Victory. Is this a generic scene, or are we able to pinpoint the event more precisely? A possible clue lies in the shield that is trampled by the rear legs of the emperor’s horse. The engraved image depicts a small round shield with a central raised boss – rather like a Roman parma shield – with a decorative carving (a four-fold leaf/petal motif with circle motifs in the interstices of the main motif). Its inclusion on the dish may represent a Roman victory over the Sasanians. The rock relief in the large arch at Taq-e-Bostan (close to modern Kermanshah) which depicts the investiture of Khosrow II (r. 590–628), the final monarch of the Sasanian dynasty, includes an equestrian portrait of Khosrow. The shah holds a spear in his right hand and a small round shield in his left, which is not dissimilar to the one represented by the engraving on the largitio plate. The relief thereby indicates a close association between this type of shield and the Sasanian monarch as a military leader which may well derive from an earlier period of the dynasty. (In its Sasanian context, a shield of this kind was likely used in close combat as protection for the face and neck.¹³⁸) Should the scene depict imperial subjugation via the shield trampled by the emperor’s horse, we could look once again at situating the portrayal in the context of the battle of Singara in 344, and the death of Shapur II’s son following his capture by the Romans. This would represent, however, a very singular point of commemoration for a battle whose reception was rather mixed in later sources (see Chapter 6). It is more apposite perhaps to evaluate the significance of this plate in the context of the vicennalia date presented by the two other largitio plates from the graves in Kerch. Its political significance would thereby correspond with the commemorative role of the largitio plates produced to celebrate Constantius II’s twenty-year anniversary but with an added message that conveyed a sense of optimism for the emperor’s departure against his Sasanian foes in the east. In this manner, the image on the plate reflects the spirited rhetoric found in literary works such as the Itinerary of Alexander which, dating from 340, situated Constantius’ pending engagements against Shapur II in the context of the historic successes of Alexander of Macedon and Trajan against earlier Persian-Iranian dynasties. Indeed, the early years of the 340s were characterised by expressions of optimism about Rome’s fortunes against the Sasanians, which appear initially to have been justified – an early victory in the autumn of 343 was so greatly received by the populace at large that it disrupted the proceedings of the ecumenical council held at Serdica¹³⁹ – prior to the military stalemate between the two powers that came to characterise the situation on the eastern frontier until the late 350s.

Another hugely significant largitio item from the time of the Constantinian dynasty is the silver plate produced to commemorate the ten-year anniversary (decennalia) of Constans’ reign that formed part of the treasure hoard of silver unearthed at the site of the Roman military camp called Augusta Raurica, now modern-day Kaiseraugst, near Basle in Switzerland. The hoard in question comprised a number of decorated and undecorated silver plates, bowls, cups, spoons, a candelabra, three silver ingots, and one hundred and eighty-six silver coins ranging from the period of the Tetrarchy up to 343.¹⁴⁰ The plate for Constans, while not the “marquee piece” of the hoard (a title that has been reserved for the so-called “Achilles Plate” (JLA 5:1, 2012)), is a partially niello-decorated large flat plate with a complex geometric ornamentation forming the central medallion around which is inscribed the following hexameter, AVGVSTVS CONSTANS DAT LAETA DECENNIA VICTOR SPONDENS OMINIBVS TER TRICENNALIA FAVSTIS, which have been translated as “Augustus Constans, victorious, celebrates ten years of prosperity, promising solemnly, after having had auspicious omens three times, to celebrate his thirty years’ jubilee”.¹⁴¹ Heinz Heinen has posited a plausible alternative reading of the inscription, proposing instead the celebration of “three thirtieth years”, i.e. 90 years, in line with the prevailing notion of the eternity of imperial rule as seen, for example, in the panegyrical traditions for Constantine I (e.g. the Panegyric of 321 (4.2.5)),¹⁴² and which may also be a reflection of those other attempts – for example, the instances such as the “Great Year” isolated in the argument of Olbrich discussed above – to promote Constans’ longevity as a mark of his divine favour. The plate was clearly produced to commemorate the emperor’s decennalia in 343, and formed part of a presentation to a chosen individual as an imperial gift to mark the occasion. The plate is also characterised by a collection of ten – appositely! – medallions depicting portrait heads of young men around its edge and separated at regular intervals by geometrically ornate motifs. Despite attempts to identify these portrait busts as representations of historical individuals (e.g. members of the Constantinian family) or as mythological characters, the plate’s most recent authoritative commentator, Annemarie Kaufmann-Heinimann, views them as “auspicious allegories”¹⁴³ conveying good fortune. With reference to these youthful busts, another commentator has noted:

It is much more likely that their meaning is to be found in the more general realm of an allegorical ‘good luck’ symbolism, which gave them a highly-favoured status in the repertoire of images for imperial as well as private propaganda in the late antique period.¹⁴⁴

The Constans plate represents a significant innovation of the type of largitio dish traditionally distributed as an imperial gift: As the examples from Kerch indicate, such items tended to feature a portrait of the emperor or a bold inscription referring to the emperor’s anniversary as in the case of the Licinius bowls from Niš. In the case of the Constans plate, its poetic inscription is discretely situated around the edge of a central medallion that features a complex geometrical design. The piece also features a decorative rim depicting portraits of young men of a highly contemporary nature that has parallels with other early-to-mid-fourth-century prestige pieces, including a silver plate found among grave deposits of a warrior from the time of Licinius’ reign in Taraneš in Macedonia which features very similar medallion portraits of anonymous figures along its edge.¹⁴⁵ In addition, Martin Guggisberg has also argued that another imperial largitio plate from Kaiseraugst from Constans’ reign is represented by the octagonal silver Achilles plate which features a central medallion depicting the discovery of Achilles on Skyros and ten scenes from the life of Achilles decorating its rim. Indeed as Guggisberg demonstrates, this particular plate represents perhaps the most unusual of all imperial largitio dishes in that it bears no portrait or explicit inscriptional mention of the donating emperor.

To conclude this section, it is worth dwelling on the circumstances and ownership of Kaiseraugst treasure and in particular on the background of the hoard, as the collection sheds light on the important role played by imperial largitio items in the turbulent political atmosphere of the early 350s, the timing for the deposit of the treasure.¹⁴⁶ In particular, the circumstances behind the hoard enable us to identify the role played by imperial donativa as “tokens of legitimacy” at a time of considerable civil and political stress. Alongside items linked to varying degrees with Constans, the hoard also contained three silver ingots bearing a portrait of Magnentius, the usurping Augustus who commanded the overthrow of Constans in the early months of 350. These ingots were highly prized possessions for those in receipt of them: The examples in the Kaiseraugst hoard weigh an average just shy of 1kg of silver¹⁴⁷ and were produced at the imperial foundry in Trier. They are stamped with the names Lugubrio and Gronopius, who were likely the inspectors at the workshop where the ingots were produced. The hoard therefore contains largitio items from the reigns of Constans (for example, the decennalia plate) and also Magnentius, which indicates that the collection was owned by an individual or individuals who may have served under both the Constantinian emperor, and his immediate successor and the architect of the coup that removed him from power. Who, exactly, this person or persons was, is contested. A small number of items in the collection are engraved with graffiti denoting (presumably) the names of the items’ owners.¹⁴⁸ Prominent among these are the names Romulus and Marcellianus. Guggisberg points out that both a Romulus (PLRE 1: 771, Romulus 2) and a Marcellinus (PLRE 1: 546, Marcellinus 9) were officers of senior rank (magister equitum and magister militum, respectively) in Magnentius’ army and are, therefore, likely owners of the collection (either past owners, or owners of the hoard at the point of its concealment). However, he ultimately rejects this idea on the grounds that such an exceptional collection of treasure would not have been abandoned “without telling reasons”, and that the final owner would have no need to mark his property with his name “as he obviously knew to whom the objects belonged”.¹⁴⁹ He also lodges an objection based on the orthography of Marcellianus, and to his mind the unlikely assimilation of Marcellianus with Marcellinus in the written sources (for example, Peter the Patrician, fr. 16). As Alan Cameron points out, however, Marcellianus was not “infrequently confused” with the commoner Marcellinus.¹⁵⁰ One item (a dish with niello medallion), as Guggisberg indicates, identifies Marcellianus as a military tribune, and another item, a hemispherical bowl, reveals him to have been the recipient of an imperial gift. The latter item was produced in the imperial city of Thessalonica, and Guggisberg speculates, not unjustifiably, that the tribune Marcellinus served with Constans during his time spent in northern Greece and the Balkans, and was duly awarded along the way.¹⁵¹ A selection of some of the surviving coins in the hoard was also minted in these areas, which seems to corroborate the idea that some of the collection was amassed while Marcellinus served in Constans’ army there.¹⁵² And yet, Guggisberg would appear to undermine his own objection regarding the abandonment of the hoard by a member of the military elite by proposing a later date for the treasure’s concealment in 351/352 – based on evidence for other hoards near to the camp at Augusta Raurica which indicates that coin deliveries were reaching the area in these later years – arising from the area being overrun by Alamanni, an incursion staged, it is alleged, by Constantius II himself who sought to tie up Magnentius’ attentions.¹⁵³ In contrast to what Guggisberg said earlier, an event of this magnitude would indeed represent a “telling reason” for a senior member of Magnentius’ army – the fortress was in the assessment of Cameron, “evidently manned by a unit”¹⁵⁴ of the usurper’s forces – to abandon a highly prized and extremely valuable collection. Presumably, the hope was that he would be able to return and reclaim his possessions. Whether the officer in question was Marcellinus, the magister militum sent by Magnentius as an envoy to Constantius II, remains however open to further discussion.

The Imperial Word

Letters written in the emperor’s name played a crucial role in projecting imperial authority across the empire. The task of writing letters to a range of parties, be it civil officials, the citizens of a town or city, or even religious leaders, was a central duty required of all later Roman emperors. It was a duty that the emperor and his government recognised as critical: The task promoted a clearly defined image of imperial rule in the guise of the emperor as an educated ruler who cared about the morality and well-being of the subjects under his charge. Writing was therefore a relentless duty for all occupants of the imperial office, a feature most readily identifiable in the creation of “laws”, a shorthand term that refers to imperial legal enactments. However, the extent of an emperor’s direct input in the composition of “laws” remains open to debate, and in this regard the observation of Simon Corcoran forms the basis for a general rule of imperial authorship: “the more important the subject matter and the more significant the recipient, the greater the emperor’s personal involvement will have been, even if he only indicated the principal points he wished to include in his reply”.¹⁵⁵ It is important, however, not to overstate or indeed overapply this point: The creation of “laws” in the later empire was certainly not the work of one person (man) alone, but was rather the end-point of lengthy processes of negotiation involving many individuals and/or parties who were concerned with seeking solutions to pressing problems. In this sense, the role of the emperor in the composition of laws was largely reactive. He was expected to reply to petitions, for example, from citizens in the empire in a way that produced a considered response to whatever concerns had been brought to his attention. One of the main considerations for those wishing to study legal enactments from the time of the Constantinian dynasty is that the principal source of evidence, the Theodosian Code, presents them in a form that preserves only their “legal content” (ius) and in a manner that denudes the legal and moralising rhetoric that routinely accompanied imperial laws.¹⁵⁶ This was a working method that the imperial commission which began the Code was keen to advertise as a guiding principle in order to situate the enterprise in the Roman juristic tradition. The enterprise itself was announced in a letter from Theodosius II on 26 March 429 to the Senate in Constantinople, in which the emperor commanded the compilation of a new legal collection after the model of the Tetrarchic-era Gregorian and Hermongenian Codes,¹⁵⁷ beginning with the constitutions of Constantine and ending with the constitutions of Theodosius himself. This was to be a compilation of laws with “general force”, whereby “the very words themselves of the constitutions, in so far as they pertain to the essential matter, shall be preserved, but those words which were added, not from the very necessity of sanctioning the law, shall be omitted” (Cod. Theod. 1.1.5). The impression given by the work of codification carried out by these Theodosian-era jurists – but also the jurists responsible for the sixth-century Codex of Justinian, the other great enterprise of imperially sanctioned legal codification from Late Antiquity – is one of the neat arrangements of laws drawn up according to established categories of Roman jurisprudence. However, this impression is wholly the creation of these late antique jurists. The historic circumstances underpinning the production of these constitutions, therefore, can only be glimpsed in the preambles which accompanied the “laws” as letters from the emperor; however, it was precisely these quasi-rhetorical and moralising portions that were removed in the act of collation.

However, investigating in more detail the relationship between imperial letters and imperial “laws” reveals the distinction to be a misleading one. In terms of evaluating the significance of the rhetorical material deemed “superfluous verbiage” by the Theodosian emperors (Cod. Theod. 1.1.6.1) which was (largely) excised during the editorial process, Jill Harries has made the important observation that for the emperor this “superfluous verbiage” was viewed as essential to his role as a legislator. In this way, therefore, “it becomes possible for edicts or letters, the two principal forms of public pronouncement, to count as ‘laws,’ even when devoid of any content that a jurist might define as ius [i.e. the legal substance]”.¹⁵⁸ By way of a couple of examples to illustrate this point, Harries discusses two imperial letters, a rescript from Maximinus Daia in 312 in reply to petitions from cities in his eastern territories against Christians (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 9.7), and the other from Constantine I in the guise of his well-known letter to the eastern provincials from the post-Licinius world of 326, in which the emperor (grudgingly) called on citizens to allow “those in error [i.e. pagans] … [to] gladly receive the benefit of peace and quiet” (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 2.56]. As Harries illustrates, it is insufficient to understand the meaning and significance of the “laws” in both texts (the respective judgements being that Christians are to be expelled, and that pagans should remain unmolested) without paying due regard to the rhetorical language in the letters since the rhetoric was instrumental in conveying not only the emperor’s legal ruling on the issues at hand but also in projecting the emperor’s persona as the guardian of virtue which was a central concern in the process.

Therefore, the role of rhetoric in communicating the legal will of the emperor was as much a part of Roman legal culture as was the focus on the rhetorically bereft ius curated by the jurists responsible for the late antique law codes. The presence of morally charged language in imperial letters reflects the influence of philosophy, especially the important role that applied philosophy played in shaping the idea of law as an educational endeavour concerned with ethics and virtue. According to the ideas propounded by philosophical thought in its Platonic guise, law was the essential component in education which ensured that human beings “became habituated to virtue”.¹⁵⁹ However, as Harries has suggested, with the exception of figures such as Julian and possibly also Constantine, it is unlikely to think that emperors had expert knowledge of the ideas about philosophy and law raised in the writings of Plato and Aristotle: Instead,

it is more likely that the rhetorical justification used by emperors’ legal draftsmen [i.e. the quaestor] were ‘sub-philosophical,’ in the sense that Platonic ideas and principles about what law was had become accepted, over the centuries, as almost formulaic parts of lawyers and legislators’ self-justification, repeatedly echoed and reworked over the centuries in Hellenistic and Roman panegyric.¹⁶⁰

While few examples of intact laws by Constantine’s sons survive, a number of imperial letters from the 340 to 350s beyond the evidence of the codices of Theodosius and Justinian are preserved mostly in the writings of Christian authors. These writers were interested in imperial letters because the nature of ecclesiastical politics in this period was heavily factional, and the ability to marshal imperial favour or disfavour for a given faction in the form of a quotation from an imperial missive was deemed very valuable. A letter from Constantius II to the people of Alexandria from 357 provides a good example of an imperial text that blends virtuous oversight, pedagogical concerns and legal rulings in one rhetorical package. It is preserved in Athanasius of Alexandria’s Defence before Constantius,¹⁶¹ a work written originally for the purpose of exonerating himself from charges brought by his “Arian” opponents in May 353 and which was then redacted at a later date, likely the first half of 357, in order to incorporate implied criticism of Constantius II in a manner that anticipated the fully developed invective of his History of the Arians.¹⁶² The letter offers an imperial invective against Athanasius, and dates from the period between the Nicene bishop’s flight from the city in February 356 and the period of time that his successor, George of Cappadocia, spent in Alexandria before he was also driven out by supporters of Athanasius in October 358.¹⁶³ The letter’s legal teeth lie in Constantius’ reminder that those who maintain an allegiance to the discredited bishop will face capital punishment:

Such persons we most earnestly advise to renounce their zeal in favour of Athanasius, and not even to remember the foolish things which he spoke so plentifully among them. Otherwise they will bring themselves before they are aware into extreme peril from which we know not anyone who will be skilful enough to deliver such factious persons. … [I]t would be inconsistent in us to suffer those flatterers and juggling ministers of his to exult against us: men of such character as it is a shame even to speak of, respecting whom orders have long ago been given to the magistrates, that they should be put to death. But even now perhaps they shall not die, if they desist from their former offences, and repent at last.

(Defence 30.55–67)

The legal enactment came in the guise of a reminder of the previous rulings applied against Athanasius’ supporters. It represents, however, only a very small proportion of the entire letter: Instead, the actual purpose of Constantius’ missive was to cement the reputation of George, the “Arian”-leaning incumbent bishop, in Alexandrian history. The letter may well have accompanied George’s entry into the city in February 357, and was perhaps part of a charm offensive by the emperor following the heavy-handed tactics of the dux Syrianus¹⁶⁴ described in Athanasius’ History of the Arians (81.1–14; see Chapter 7). Constantius’ interpretation of this history is a rhetorical legerdemain in which the emperor juxtaposed the city’s reputation as a centre of learning (“you, who rose up as the first teachers of wisdom; who were the first to acknowledge God”) against the “unprofitable teachings” of Athanasius: Thereby effectively delegitimising Athanasius in his “home town”. The emperor’s sleight of hand lay in acknowledging Alexandria’s Hellenic roots without referring to the pagan heritage underlying the city’s reputation as a centre of learning. By contrast, when Julian wrote to the city to reprimand (albeit in a “lukewarm” manner¹⁶⁵) the Alexandrians over the murder of the same George in 361, seemingly at the hands of the pagan community,¹⁶⁶ Julian explicitly promoted the pagan heritage of Alexandria albeit only to draw attention to the shortcomings of those responsible for George’s murder for failing to uphold the law and so pay due regard “for the welfare of your community, for humanity, for decency” as befitting those who profess devotion to “the most holy Serapis” (ep. 60 = Wright ep. 21: Socrates, Church History 3.3.4–25).

What was significant for Constantius about this relationship, however, was the opportunity it presented him for expressing the idea that he was responsible for the well-being of his subjects’ souls (Defence 30.21–22), a corollary of his father’s preoccupation with demonstrating personal involvement in matters of administration and justice.¹⁶⁷ The alignment of Athanasius’ teaching and its influence over the city with the meta-language of disease which typified Constantine I’s criminalisation of heresy (e.g. Constantine to the Nicomedians from late 325 concerning the “crimes” of Eusebius, their bishop¹⁶⁸) is employed again to promote George as a corrective to Athanasius’ corrosive influence: “Would that all the citizens together would lay hold on [George’s] words, as a sacred anchor, so that we might need neither knife nor cautery for those whose souls are diseased!” (Defence 30.52–54).

The letter is characterised by a high degree of imperial flattery towards the citizenry in a way that is fundamentally divorced from the actual treatment of Alexandrians by provincial officials, in particular the episode from the evening of the 8/9 February 356 when Syrianus and a company of troops attacked catholic worshippers during a service in the church of St. Theonas where Athanasius was presiding. An important document composed only three days (History of the Arians 81.14) after the episode in the form of a petitionary appeal (technically a diamarturia: 81.1–14) appended to the History of the Arians recounts – maybe with or without exaggeration – the extent of the violence directed towards those in the church: It takes its place, therefore, alongside other narratives of violence which characterise the historical record documenting the violent reality of Christian factionalism during the 340s (discussed in detail, see Chapter 7).¹⁶⁹ The episode was likely conceived initially as an exercise to apprehend Athanasius whose card had been marked by Constantius for some considerable time, a task that would therefore have fallen to Syrianus as the dux Aegypti whose role it was to enforce imperial directives in Alexandria.¹⁷⁰ However, events took a turn for the worse and according to the author of the diamarturia, “[Syrianus] gave orders for us Christians to be beaten with clubs, and so revealed by these actions that a war had been waged against the church at night” (81.4).¹⁷¹ People died in the resulting riot (81.5). The appeal poignantly urges all those who handle it to broadcast the brutality of Syrianus and the soldiers towards the congregation gathered in the church St. Theonas on that fateful night. Its historic importance lies in its status as a petitionary document authored on behalf of the Alexandrian catholic community, which they intended initially to be communicated to Maximus, the Prefect of Egypt, and government inspectors (curiosi). However, its author urged that knowledge of the event be shared more widely, indeed as far as

to the ears of the most pious augustus and to the [praetorian] prefects and the officials in every place so that it may become known that a war has taken place against the churches, and that, in the time of the augustus Constantius, Syrianus has caused virgins and many others to become martyrs.

(81.5)

It was written so that, in the words of its author, “this petition of ours be referred up” (81.12), namely to Constantius II himself. The emperor, in turn, was expected to respond to the issues raised by the petition – e.g. the propriety of Syrianus’ actions, and the legitimacy of Athanasius’ episcopal status – with a legal ruling. The document represents a key stage in the petitionary cycle of activity – the “petition and response” model proposed by Fergus Millar¹⁷² – according to which new “laws” were generated following “a process of negotiation between interdependent parties”.¹⁷³

What we do not know, however, is whether Constantius’s letter to the Alexandrians is his response to the Alexandrians’ diamarturia. If the letter is a response to the Alexandrians’ witness, then it offers a remarkable example of an emperor “turning a blind eye” to affairs. The letter eschews the opportunity to address the allegations of violence against the dux Aegypti made in the plea, although it does tackle the matter of Athanasius’ suitability for the role of bishop which the author of the appeal caused to be raised following the request that Athanasius be allowed to remain in Alexandria. The imperially sponsored denigration of Athanasius’ reputation is not simply reinforced in Constantius’ letter but is intensified via a comparison between the majesty of the Alexandrians and the (alleged) low-born infamy of Athanasius, who is likened to a demagogue:

how can I describe him more truly than by saying that he was superior in nothing to the meanest of the people, and that the only kindness which he showed to the city was that he did not thrust her citizens down into the pit.

(Defence 30.28–30)

The absence of the allegations of violence brought against Syrianus in the letter of Constantius preserved by Athanasius in his Defence suggests that it is not the emperor’s reply to the Alexandrian’s diamarturia: Imperial rescripts – replies to petitions – tended to address directly the question or issue raised by the petitioner and not ignore them. Instead, Constantius’ letter is an excellent example of an imperial letter where its legal ruling was couched in a rhetoric of propriety that was regarded as superfluous by later jurists but was nonetheless viewed as an entirely fitting way of conveying the emperor’s judgement about Alexandria following the displacement of Athanasius by his successor, George.

With this example in mind, therefore, it is worth repeating Harries’ observation that imperial letters and edicts were conceived as “laws” and were, therefore, received like other “laws” … [akin to] a “command or prohibition” by legal scholars and philosophers of the time. In the case of Constantius II and his brothers, many such examples of letters like the one from Constantius to the Alexandrians survive as a result of their preservation by Christian authors in a variety of works, including treatises, apologies and church histories. Although these letters frequently address a range of issues, they tend overwhelmingly to be concerned with religious affairs and largely the fate of individual bishops. Without wishing to characterise such letters as exceptional, the vast majority of laws issued in the names of the Constantinian emperors dealt with more quotidian concerns. These laws are to be found in the great legal codifications of Late Antiquity noted above, the Theodosian Code and the Code of Justinian. However, utilising these laws for historical enquiry in light of their codification requires an awareness of any and all attribution and reconstruction difficulties arising from the act of codification. Paola Ombretta Cuneo’s magisterial study from 1997 comprehensively addressed many of the issues arising from the codification of the “regulatory activity” (attività normativa) of Constantine’s sons.¹⁷⁴

Cuneo highlights the full range of problems, therefore, for students wishing to engage with the codified legal material of Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans. Cuneo’s discussion is long and occasionally complex and for the sake of thinking about and using constitutions as a source for the period, I offer the following summary of her considerations. As we noted, the legal scholars behind the collections did not reproduce the constitutions in their entirety, but rather excerpted portions of – what they took to be – the legal content, and arranged this content according to a series of intertitles (i.e. themed divisions as books (libri) and subtitles). One effect of this in, for example, the Theodosian Code is that a single law can be divided across two or more titles or books within the collection, giving the impression of separate constitutions when in fact they are fragments of a single ruling.¹⁷⁵ A further concern relates to the dating of constitutions. As Cuneo notes, achieving precise dates for the creation and/or dissemination of constitutions is a genuine challenge since the codified texts did not always transmit the subscriptions containing the dates in a faithful manner. The different indications that laws originally contained – the date when the emperor signed off a ruling (datum), and the dates of acceptance (acceptum) and promulgation (propositum) by the magistrate – have “rarely been preserved intact”.¹⁷⁶ In numerous instances across the collection, confusion arises regarding which date is supplied by compilers. Often dating issues can be resolved by considering other features, for example, a constitution’s historical context, although Cuneo notes that dating results based on contextual evidence are frequently imprecise and unsatisfactory. Confusion over consular dating and the transcription of names in subscriptions – for example, errors in the transmission of the names Constantine (Constantinus) and Constantius, and confusion over homonyms such as Constantius Gallus (Caesar) – has led to the misattribution of several constitutions on the part of compilers. The names of emperors in the inscriptions of constitutions can also be inexact and incomplete¹⁷⁷; similar problems also attend the names of locations accompanying constitutional subscriptions.¹⁷⁸ Constitutional paternity – namely, the identification of which emperor was responsible for a given constitution – is, therefore, a key consideration for those working with the laws of Constantine’s immediate successors. Problems of paternity are compounded by the historical events that followed the death of Constantine I where the precise configuration of authority between Constantine II and Constans in the central and western territories of the empire remains a moot area of investigation.¹⁷⁹ The death of Constantine II in April 340 led to the erasure of his name from the legislative record to be replaced in the majority of cases with the name of Constantius II as the next senior Augustus.¹⁸⁰ Paternity is a particular problem (as we see in Chapter 5) for the period when Constantius II and Constans ruled the empire together between 340 and 350: Numerous laws in the Theodosian Code seemingly issued in the territories of Constans are attributed to Constantius II as the sole issuing authority.¹⁸¹ Interestingly, Cuneo rejects attempts to explain these seeming discrepancies according to a priori methods¹⁸²: Here, she has in mind earlier efforts based on arguments proposing either the functional unity or disunity of the imperial college at this point in time. Instead, she proposes a model of investigation where each example is scrutinised on case by case basis, which is also the approach taken in this study.

This brief survey of a selection of sources of auto-images is by no means intended to be exhaustive. As noted, there are other types of evidence which straddle the divide between auto- and hetero-images, including the important Chronography, a privately commissioned, illustrated calendar of the year 354, which is discussed later in the study (Chapter 8), honorific inscriptions accompanying monuments and statues that were commissioned by high-ranking officials or by councils (including the Senate in Rome) across the empire (Chapters 7 and 8), and imperial orations and historiography. The following chapter presents an overview of some of the most important of these sources for the study of the period 337–361, and discusses the main themes, issues and trends in scholarly evaluations arising from the study of them over the years.

Notes

1. See Barnes 1989.

2. See most recently Crawford 2016: 54.

3. Jones 1964: 115. For Jones’ methodology, see Garnsey 2008.

4. Drijvers 2018: 239.

5. Cf. Corcoran 1996: 1–5.

6. See the informative discussion by Stewart 2008: 108–142; and with reference to laws, see Dillon 2012: 83–85.

7. Drijvers 2018: 239.

8. Wienand 2012a: 26–27.

9. Drijvers 2018: 240.

10. Wienand 2012a: 14.

11. Wienand 2012a: 16.

12. Wienand 2012a: 24.

13. Hall 1980.

14. Lenski 2016: 7.

15. Hall 1980: 136.

16. Hall 1980: 137.

17. Hall 1980: 137–138.

18. Hall 1980: 136.

19. Lenski 2016: 8.

20. Lenski 2016: 10.

21. Lenski 2016: 12.

22. Lenski 2016: 7.

23. Lenski 2016: 45.

24. Varner 2004: 1.

25. Leader-Newby 2004: 48.

26. See the general comments on the political value of coinage in Howgego 1995: 62–87.

27. Casey 1994: 55.

28. See esp. Howgego 1995: 62–87.

29. Howgego 1995: 62.

30. The patterns of coin production under Constantine’s successors are discussed in RIC 8, 55–67.

31. RIC 8: ix.

32. Wienand 2012a: 43–47.

33. Casey 1994: 57.

34. See Abdy 2012: 594–595.

35. RIC 8: 32–44; Adelson 1954; Abdy 2012: 595–597.

36. Wienand 2012a: 66.

37. For details, see Jones 1964: 427–445; Shelton 1982: 216–218; Wienand 2012a: 50–53.

38. Wienand 2012a: 53.

39. Cf. Butcher 2008.

40. Cf. Lenski 2016: 12–15.

41. See esp. Lendon 1997: 107–175.

42. Howgego 1995: 70–71.

43. Cf. Stewart 2008: 116.

44. Abdy 2012: 596.

45. That is, the large AE2 (c. 5.2–5.5g), small AE2 (c. 4.2–4.5g), and the AE3 (2.5–2.7g), following Kent 1967.

46. See the initial considerations of the legend by Mattingly 1933; cf. Abdy 2012: 596.

47. See Carson, Hill and Kent 1965: 41–42; RIC 8, 34–39.

48. Portmann 1999: 309.

49. Wienand 2012a: 45.

50. Cf. Kent and Painter 1977: 160.

51. For example, RIC 8 Thessalonica 115–116; see Caza 2016: 159.

52. Carson, Hill and Kent 1965: 41.

53. Cf. Kent 1967: 87.

54. RIC 8: 35.

55. Carson, Hill and Kent 1965: 41.

56. See Olbrich 2004.

57. RIC 8: 36.

58. Cf. Olbrich 2004: 427.

59. Discussed in RIC 8: 37–39.

60. Carson, Hill and Kent 1965: 41; RIC 8: 37–38.

61. RIC 8: 38–39.

62. Libanius, Or. 59. 117; Julian, Or. 1. 24d: Both report that Shapur II’s son was killed (executed?) following his capture by the Romans.

63. See esp. Greenlee 2020.

64. Mattingly 1933.

65. PLRE 1: 696–697 (Philippus 7).

66. Aurelius Victor. De Caes. 28.2–3 (trans. Bird 1994: 29–30). Philip’s celebrations for the 1,000-year anniversary are imagined by the late fourth-century source, Historia Augusta (Gordian the Third,33.1–3). See Portmann 1999: 307–308.

67. Kent 1967: 85.

68. Moser 2018: 89.

69. On the ideology of unity in this period, but also more broadly, see Greenlee 2020.

70. Portmann 1999: 314–316.

71. Portmann 1999: 316.

72. Portmann 1999: 318.

73. Wienand 2015b: “the Roman emperors of the fourth century promoted the idea that they were semper triumphatores, whose authority, legitimacy, and power did not depend on any particular military success; imperial victoriousness was rather conceived as an intrinsic and permanent quality” (p. 427).

74. Moser 2018: 89.

75. RIC 8: 34.

76. Olbrich 2004: 420–421.

77. The only source to relate this is Augustine, City of God 18.53–53.

78. Olbrich 2004: 438; cf. Matthews 1975: 246; Cameron 2011: 127–128.

79. Olbrich 2004: 423.

80. Tacitus, Annals. 6.28.

81. For example, 1. Clement 25.1–26.1.

82. Olbrich 2004: 423.

83. RIC 2.3: 38 – the earliest appearance of the phoenix on coinage was on an aureus struck for divus Trajan from 117 CE.

84. Carson, Hill and Kent 1965: 41, 108.

85. For example, Eusebius, de laud. Const. 2.3; 7.9 (Drake 1976).

86. Barnes 1993: 68, and the wider discussion of the chronology of Constans’ involvement from 63 to 70.

87. OCD: Michael Trapp 2003: 1181.

88. Van den Broek 1972: 53.

89. Olbrich 2004: 428.

90. See esp. Latowsky 2020: 69–70.

91. Olbrich 2004: 436.

92. For the association between the imperial image of Constantine I and the phoenix, see Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4.72.1, and Cameron and Hall 1999: 348.

93. Olbrich 2004: 422.

94. See the comments by Howgego 1995: 70–71.

95. Greenlee 2020: 141.

96. Olbrich 2004: 432.

97. Olbrich 2004: 433–434.

98. Olbrich 2004: 434. The vota – VOT/XV/MLVTXX issues from Antioch for Constans’ quindecennalia – are discussed by Kent, RIC 8: 34; 505; 521. The bronzes depicting the reconciliation of the two brothers are discussed by Baldus 1984.

99. Potestà 2011.

100. For example, Lienhard 1999: 136–165.

101. Reece 2003: 142.

102. Reece 2003: 142.

103. Reece 2003: 142.

104. Cf. Reece 2003: 142.

105. Reece 2003: 143.

106. Reece 2006: 115.

107. Reece 2005: 115.

108. Casey 1994: 56.

109. Wienand 2012: 43–47.

110. Hebblewhite 2017: 4.

111. Butcher 2008: 145.

112. Kent and Painter 1977: 18.

113. Cf Wienand 2015b: 424–425, and in particular the author’s differentiation between largitiones and dona, n. 4, 425.

114. Banaji 1996: 49–51.

115. Kent and Painter 1977: 17–18; Abdy 2012: 590–591.

116. Notably Banaji 1996: 39–88.

117. Reece 2006: 122.

118. Wienand 2015b, discussing RIC 8 Antioch 78.

119. Wienand 2015b: 425.

120. Wienand 2015b: 440–442; see RIC 8 Antioch 67.

121. Wienand 2015b: 441.

122. Guggisberg 2003: 300.

123. Leader-Newby 2004: 48–49.

124. Leader-Newby 2004: 8.

125. Kent and Painter 1977: 24; Leader-Newby 2004: 18–19.

126. Kent and Painter 1977: 25.

127. Leader-Newby 2004: 21–22.

128. Leader-Newby 2004: 21.

129. Leader-Newby 2004: 36.

130. Notably the analysis by Leader-Newby 2004: 27–39.

131. Leader-Newby 2004: 36.

132. Leader-Newby 2004: 36.

133. Cioffi 2016.

134. Foss 1990: 104 (Trajan); 137 (Marcus Aurelius), only a tiny sample of the examples identified by Foss.

135. For example, RIC 8: 581 for variations of the emperor riding to the right in military dress.

136. The magnificent gold issue from Trier, RIC 7 503.

137. RIC 8 Milan 233; Rome 442.

138. See Farrokh 2017: 105.

139. Athanasius, Hist. Ar. 16.2.

140. Guggisberg 2003: 336.

141. Kaufmann Heinimann 1999: 339, and see the author’s comments at 341, nt. 7; also Leader-Newby 2004: 25.

142. Heinen 2000: 293.

143. Kaufmann-Heinimann 2003: 170.

144. Guggisberg 2003: 301.

145. Kaufmann-Heinimann 2003: 142–145. See Ivanovski 1984.

146. On the likely date for the deposit of the items, see Guggisberg 2003: 302.

147. Kent and Painter 1977: 43.

148. For details, see Guggisberg 2003: 302.

149. Guggisberg 2003: 301.

150. Cameron 2011: 661.

151. Guggisberg 2003: 301–302; cf. Barnes 1993: 224.

152. Guggisberg 2003: 304.

153. Drinkwater 2007: 201–203; cf. Heather 2020: 79–80.

154. Cameron 2011: 661.

155. Corcoran 2014: 187.

156. See esp. Harries 2011: 345–346. All translations in this present study (with some modifications following Cuneo 1997) are taken from Pharr 1952.

157. About which see Corcoran 1996: 25–42.

158. Harries 2011: 347.

159. Harries 2011: 354.

160. Harries 2011: 353.

161. Following the translation of Robertson 1892.

162. Barnes 1993: 196–197; also, Barnes 1997.

163. The chronology of this period is unpicked by Barnes 1993: 119.

164. PLRE 1: 872.

165. Cf. Teitler 2017: 40.

166. Cf. Barnes 1993: 155.

167. See Dillon 2012: 97–118.

168. See Baker-Brian 2020: 368–372.

169. Baker-Brian 2020: 357–359.

170. So characterised by Haas 1997: 71.

171. Trans. Flower 2016: 112.

172. For example, Millar 1977: 6–7; Harries 2011: 361–365; Eich 2012: 87–98.

173. Harries 2011: 361.

174. Cuneo 1997: lxvii.

175. Cuneo 1997: lxvii–lxviii. For the editorial practices of the compilers of the Code of Justinian, see Corcoran 2016: cx–cxiii.

176. Dates remain intact for around only twenty laws of Constantine’s sons as outlined by Cuneo 1997: lxix, nt. 2.

177. Cuneo 1997: lxxii–lxxiii.

178. Cuneo 1997: lxxxi.

179. Most recently, Lewis 2020.

180. See the examples discussed by Cuneo 1997: lxxix.

181. Cuneo 1997: lxxx.

182. Cuneo 1997: lxxxi.