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Nina C. Coppolino, editor
New England Classical Journal 35.1 (2008) 3-20
Constantinian Arles and Its
Christian Minters
T
Charles M. Odahl
Boise State University
he town of Arles, situated along the east bank of the Rhone River
in the south of Roman Gaul, was initially constructed in the late
first century B.C. as a colony for the sixth legion, and was officially
designated in Latin as the Colonia Julia Paterna Arelate Sextanorum. Like
other Roman provincial towns in this region, such as Arausio (Orange) and
Nemausus (Nîmes), favored by the first emperor Augustus and his JulioClaudian Dynasty (31 B.C. - A.D. 68), it was a model city meant to showcase
the amenities of civilized urban living among barbarian subjects. It was
early outfitted with the stone structures typical in a model imperial colony
(Illustration 1).
Ill. 1: Aerial of Arles situated along the Rhone River with
its Roman walls, amphitheater and theater clearly visible.
It was surrounded by a circuit wall which enclosed a checkerboard grid
street plan based upon a north-south cardo avenue and an east-west
decumanus avenue. At one end of the town, it had a large two story 446’ by
351’ amphitheater which could hold over 21,000 spectators for gladiatorial
combats and beast fights, and a 335’ diameter theater which could seat
7,000 people for dramatic presentations and literary readings. In the center
of the town where the major avenues intersected, there was a market place
for shopping activities and a forum for public business; the Museum of
Pagan Art displaying a statue of Augustus and a provincial copy of his
Shield of Virtues now resides at the former site, and a remnant of a Temple
of Roma and Augustus is embedded in a hotel wall occupying the latter
site. The homes, shops, and bathhouses which graced the ancient town
of Arelate are now largely replaced by the structures of the modern city of
Arles. Although it was not a provincial capital, such as Narbo or Lugdunum,
the wealth of its Roman remains still in situ and in museums reveals that
it was a prosperous provincial town which benefited from its Augustan
foundation and its strategic location on key land and sea trade routes
during the pax Romana of the early empire.
Arles suffered along with many other provincial towns from the
tribulations of the third century imperial crisis. Nevertheless, it re-emerged
as one of the great cities of Roman Gaul under the patronage of and in a
special relationship with the Constantinian Dynasty in the early fourth
century. The political, military, administrative and economic reforms of the
Diocletianic Tetrarchy pulled the Roman world back from the abyss of the
imperial crisis, and were instituted in Gaul by Constantius I, initially the
Caesar, and then the Augustus of the northwestern dioceses of the later
empire (A.D. 293-306). His reconquest of Britain from a usurper, his defense
of Gaul from the barbarians, and his patronage of land reclamation efforts
and urban rebuilding projects endeared him to his subjects. Most of these
efforts were focused upon the northern regions and cities of his domains,
such as York, Trier, and Autun, but Arles and the southern cities of the west
benefited from the peace and prosperity of the new era as well.
For ancient Roman Gaul in general and the city of Arles in particular, consult
Paul MacKendrick, Roman France (London, 1971), esp. pp. 59–64, and Anthony King,
Roman Gaul and Germany (Berkeley, 1990), esp. pp. 68–88; for Roman town planning,
see Mortimer Wheeler, Roman Art and Architecture (New York, 1985), esp. pp. 25–88,
and David Macauley, City (Boston, 1974); and for the Roman remains in Arles,
consult Michelin Guide de Tourisme: Provence (Clermont-Ferrand, 1978), pp. 57–63.
For the third century imperial crisis, see George C. Brauer, The Age of the Soldier
Emperors, A.D. 244–284 (Park Ridge, NJ, 1975), J.F. Drinkwater, The Gallic Empire:
Separatism and Continuity in the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, A.D.
260—274 (Stuttgart, 1987), and Stephen Williams, Diocletian and the Roman Recovery
(London, 1985; reprinted 1997), pp. 15–38.
For the reforms of Diocletian and the rule of Constantius in Britain and Gaul,
consult William Seston, Dioclétien et la Tétrarchie I: Guerres et réformes (Paris, 1946),
Frank Kolb, Diocletian und die Erste Tetrarchie: Improvisation oder Experiment in der
It was during the long and successful reign of his more famous son
Constantine the Great (A.D. 306-37), however, that the city of Arles rose
to prominence as the recipient of impressive imperial patronage and the
site of important historical events, and developed a close connection to
the Constantinian Dynasty. Constantine succeeded his father in 306 to
the emperorship of the northwest regions of the Roman world, ruling the
Britannic, Gallic, and Hispanic dioceses for the next six years. He was
early compared to his father in the manner in which he clearly exhibited
the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice in both
his private life and public policies. He regularly patrolled the frontiers and
defeated barbarian incursions, and toured his provinces and patronized
building projects. While the other claimants for imperial rule during the
Galerian Tetrarchy were gaining reputations as tyrants and persecutors,
Constantine was being hailed as a good and tolerant emperor who deserved
to rule the whole Roman Empire.
With the death of Galerius and the breakup of the Second Tetrarchy
(311-12), Constantine marched into Italy to overthrow the usurper
Maxentius who had held Italy and North Africa for several years against
the legitimate rulers of the imperial government. Before the climactic battle
outside of Rome, Constantine experienced the supernatural revelations
which convinced him that the aid of the Christian God and his talismanic
symbols could overcome the pagan deities and the superstitious rites
employed by his enemy. Victorious at the Battle of Mulvian Bridge on 28
October 312, Constantine thereafter turned his back on traditional paganism
and became an increasingly zealous devotee of the Christian religion.
As his personal beliefs affected his public policies, he included Catholic
clergy in his court circle, immersed himself in ecclesiastical literature, and
got involved in Church disputes. He employed legislative powers to give
the Catholic Church a favored position in Roman law, expended material
Organization monarchischer Herrschaft? (Berlin, 1987), Williams, Diocletian, pp. 61ff.,
and Charles Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire (London, 2004 hb.,
2006 expanded pb.), pp. 42–74; and for contemporary appreciation of Constantius’
rule of the Gallic dioceses, read Panegyrici IV (VIII) & V (IX), La. texts and Fr.
trans. by E. Galletier in Panégyriques Latins, 2 vols. (Paris, 1952), and La. texts and
Eng. trans. in C.E.V. Nixon and B.S. Rodgers, In Praise of Later Roman Emperor –The
Panegyrici Latini (Berkeley, 1994); cf. the later comments of Eusebius, Vita Constantini
= The Life of Constantine I. 13, Gk. text and Eng. trans. by A. Cameron and S. Hall
(Oxford, 1999), and Eutropius, Breviarium ab Urbe Condita = Abbreviated History from
the City’s Founding X. 1, La. text ed. by C. Santini (Leipzig, 1979), and Eng. tr. by H.W.
Bird in TTH, vol. 14 Eutropius: Breviarium (Liverpool, 1993), on the fair and mild rule
of Constantius.
For ancient praise of Constantine’s early rule in the west, see Panegyrici
VI (VII) & VII (VI), Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum = On the Deaths of the
Persecutors, La. text and Eng. trans. by J.L. Creed in OECT (Oxford, 1984), and
Euseb., Vita Const I. 22–25; and for modern interpretations, consult Timothy D.
Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA, 1981), pp. 25–41, and Odahl,
Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 75–97.
resources to build Christian basilicas in Roman cities, and used imperial
propaganda to spread the Christian religion through Roman society. Over
the twenty-five years during which Constantine ruled as Rome’s first
Christian emperor (312-37), the Christian Church was transformed from
a persecuted minority cult into an established majority religion, and the
pagan state of classical antiquity evolved into the Christian empire of the
Byzantine Era.
Constantine’s Italian campaign and Christian conversion would affect
the economic status and the religious orientation of Arles, and give it a
close connection to the Constantinian Dynasty. With the addition of Italy
and North Africa to the regions earlier controlled by Constantine, Arles was
centrally located between the northwestern and the southwestern domains
which the emperor thereafter ruled through the western part of the Roman
world. Constantine swiftly noted this fact, and focused his attentions on
Arles in several significant ways and events over the next few years.
In the spring of 313, he closed the mint of Ostia near Rome, and
transferred its work force and operations to Arles while on his way back
to his capital at Trier. For the rest of his reign, Trier, Arles and Rome would
serve as the major coin producing centers for the western third of the
empire, with London, Lyons and Ticinum playing lesser roles. This action
raised the imperial status and economic clout of the city on the Rhone,
which seems henceforth to have supplied most of the coins needed for the
business transactions across southern Gaul and Spain. Perhaps to mark
its new importance as a mint center, the walls along the landward circuit
of the city seem to have been strengthened at this time; and a massive
new bathhouse, thermae, was constructed under imperial patronage along
the river side of the city. The latter structure was 320’ long by 148’ wide,
The ancient literary sources for the Italian campaign and Christian conversion
of Constantine were Panegyrici IX (XII) & X (IV), Lact., De Mort Pers 44, Euseb., Vita
Const I. 27–40, Origo Constantini Imperatoris = The Lineage of the Emperor Constantine
4. 12, La. text and Eng. trans. by J.C. Rolfe in the LCL, Ammianus Marcellinus, vol. 3
(London, 1964), and Zosimus, Historia Nova = New History II. 14–16, Gk. text ed. by L.
Mendelssohn (Leipzig, 1887), and Eng. trans. by R.T. Ridley (Melbourne, 1982); the
appearance of Christian ideas in his laws, letters and sermons, of Christian symbols
on his coins, and his massive building program of Christian churches throughout
the empire, of course, buttress the veracity and reality of Constantine’s conversion
to the Christian religion. For modern works emphasizing the latter, see Norman H.
Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (London, 1929), A.H.M. Jones,
Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (New York, 1962), Barnes, Constantine and
Eusebius (1981), and Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire (2006).
The classic study on the mint of Arles was the doctoral dissertation of Patrick
Bruun, The Constantinian Coinage of Arelate (Helsinki, 1953); however, as Bruun
changed many of his original positions stated therein, his later work on The Roman
Imperial Coinage, Vol. VII: Constantine and Licinius, A.D. 313–337 (London, 1966), pp.
226–79 for Arles, will be cited here; cf. Andrew Burnett, Coinage in the Roman World
(London, 1987), pp. 131–34, 140–48, and R.A.G. Carson, Coins of the Roman Empire
(London, 1990), pp. 158–62.
equipped with hot, warm, and cold bath rooms all heated by an efficient
hypocaust system under its floors. Only about a third of the original
complex survives, the section containing the hot bath caldarium; yet, it is still
quite impressive even in ruins (Ill. 2).
Ill. 2: View to the rear apse and side wall of the
Constantinian thermae complex at ancient Arles.
While Arles was enjoying its new economic status and material
amenities, Constantine was dealing with an ecclesiastical dispute that
had started at Carthage and had splintered the Christians in North Africa
during the half decade when Maxentius had ruled the region—the Donatist
Schism. Constantine got involved in the spring of 313 when his provincial
governors were distributing the monetary subventions and munera
exemptions which he had ordered them to bestow upon the Christian clergy
in his new domains in Italy and Africa. The emperor initially referred the
dispute to the Bishop of Rome, who held a synod, in the old capital during
the autumn of 313, which sided with Caecilian and the Catholics. But, the
Donatists appealed over the head of the Roman bishop to the emperor.
For Constantinian Arles in general, and the Constantinian thermae in
particular, consult King, Roman Gaul and Germany, pp. 182–85, Odahl, Constantine
and the Christian Empire, pp. 133–35, and the Michelin Guide de Tourisme: Provence, pp.
57–63.
In response to this action, Constantine thought it would be best to call a
general meeting of the whole western episcopate to deal with the North
African schism and other Church issues. Since Arles was midway between
the northwestern and southwestern provinces in his part of the empire, he
chose it to be the host city for the first council of the whole western Church.
He dispatched letters to the Christian bishops of the west inviting them to
come to Arles, and orders to his diocesan vicars instructing them to assist
the clergy in their travels along the imperial road system. The Council of
Arles met in August of 314 with thirty-three bishops and numerous lesser
clergy from the Dioceses of Britanniae, Galliae, Viennensis, Italia, Africa, and
Hispaniae present. Marinus, the Bishop of Arles, served as the official host
and nominal head of the gathering; yet Constantine, as his biographer
Eusebius remarked, “like some general bishop constituted by God . . . did
not disdain to be present and sit with them in their assembly, but even bore
a share in their deliberations, working in every way for the peace of God.”
The council backed the decision of the Roman Synod, declaring for the
legitimacy of the consecration of Caecilian as the official Bishop of Carthage
against the fallacious charges of the Donatist schismatics; it also enacted a
number of canons or “rules” concerning ecclesiastical order and discipline,
including three, which for the first time allowed Christian laity to serve in
the imperial government and in the Roman army.
The council in 314 increased the prestige of Arles throughout the
western provinces, and brought the raised status of Catholic Christianity
in general and the imperial mission to promote the faith in particular to
the attention of the citizens of the city along the Rhone. The presence of
the emperor at the council linked him closer to the city residents, and his
patronage of the Church opened them to the Christian religion.
After a joyous Decennalia celebration in Rome during which the Arch
of Constantine was dedicated and his apostolic basilicas for Peter and Paul
were started in the summer of 315, Constantine and the imperial family
toured southern Gaul again the following year. While visiting Arles, he and
his second wife Fausta enjoyed the birth of their first son Constantine II
The most important ancient sources for the Donatist Schism and the Council
of Arles were Euseb., Vita Const I. 44–45 (with the quotation on Constantine at the
council in ch. 44), and Optatus, Libri VII de Schismate Donatistarum cum Appendix
Decem Monumentorum Veterum ad Donatistarum Historiam Pertinentium = Seven Books
on the Schism of the Donatists with an Appendix of Ten Ancient Documents Pertaining
to the History of the Donatists, La. texts ed. by C. Ziwsa in the CSEL, vol. 26 (Vienna,
1893), with an Eng. trans. by O.R. Vassall-Phillips, St. Optatus (London, 1917); for
modern scholarship on Donatism, read W.H.C. Frend, The Donatist Church, 3rd ed.
(Oxford, 1986), esp. pp. 141–68, Maureen A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa:
The Donatist World (Minneapolis, MN, 1997), H.A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops:
The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore, MD, 2000), esp. pp. 212–21, and Charles Odahl,
“Constantine’s Epistle to the Bishops at the Council of Arles: A Defense of Imperial
Authorship,” The Journal of Religious History, vol. 17, 3 (1993), pp. 274–89, and
Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 129–41.
in August of 316. The emperor already had a sixteen-year-old son named
Crispus from his deceased first wife Minervina; but, the birth of another
son offered greater assurance for the continuity of the dynasty. The citizens
of Arles were probably proud of the fact that an heir and namesake of
Constantine had been born in their midst, and certainly hoped that such
an auspicious event might strengthen their connections to his dynasty.
It would ultimately do so; but, they would have to wait a dozen years to
realize their hope (Ill. 3).
Ill. 3: The Ada Cameo depicting the imperial family in late 316,
mother Helena, Constantine, Constantine II, Fausta and Crispus.
In the autumn of 316, Constantine was forced to wage war against his
former ally and eastern co-Augustus Licinius, who was tampering with
Origo 5. 19, Sextus Aurelius Victor, Liber de Caesaribus = Book of the Caesars 41.
6, La. text ed. by F. Pichlmayr (Leipzig, 1911) with an Eng. trans. by H.W. Bird in
TTH, vol. 17 Liber de Caesaribus of Sextus Aurelius Victor (Liverpool, 1994), Victor,
Epitome de Caesaribus 41. 4, La. text ed. by F. Pichlmayr (Leipzig, 1911), Orosius,
Historiarum adversum Paganos Libri VII = Seven Books against the Pagans VII. 28. 2, La.
text ed. by C. Zangemeister in CSEL, vol. 5 (Vienna, 1882) with Eng. trans. by R.L.
Deferrari in FC, vol. 56 (Washington, D.C., 1964), and Zos., Hist Nova II. 20 all noted
that Constantine II was made a Caesar by his father in the year following his birth,
while the Epitome of Victor and the Historia of Zosimus mentioned that he had been
born in Arles. For other ancient references, see Timothy D. Barnes, The New Empire
of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, MA, 1982), pp. 44–45; and for the narrative
framework, read Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, p. 163.
his arrangements for the rulership of Italy. Constantine won the Bellum
Cibalense—as it has been named after a key battle in this civil war—and
expanded his direct control over the central European and Aegean dioceses
of the empire. Peaceful relations were resumed in early 317, but the
emperors drifted into a religious “cold war” as Constantine systematically
dropped the pagan gods from his coinage and greatly expanded his
patronage of Christianity, while Licinius regularly advertised the Jupiter
cult on his coins and gradually resumed persecution of the Christians
over the next few years. In the summer of 324, they finally fought a “Holy
War” to determine whose dynasty would rule the Roman world and which
divinity would be its official protector. Constantine and Christianity
won the climactic war; and, in the aftermath of the victory, he set up a
Constantinian dynastic tetrarchy with himself as sole Augustus and three of
his sons as Caesars, and began the expansion of the Greco-Roman colony of
Byzantium into a great new Christian capital for the east—Constantinople.10
While Constantine had been focusing his attentions upon the eastern
regions of the empire after 316—residing in Sirmium, Thessalonica,
Nicomedia and ultimately Constantinople—he had left his oldest son
Crispus as a Caesar to govern the western regions from his old tetrarchic
capital at Trier. But, during the Vicennalia celebrations in Italy in 326, his
second wife Fausta, apparently jealous of the grown son of “the other
woman” and anxious for the succession of her own young sons, set up
Crispus on false charges of rape, and got him put out of the way. She would
pay with her own life as well when her treachery was discovered; but her
plot did assure that her three sons would succeed to their father’s imperial
position as he established them as Caesars ruling various parts of the
Roman world over the last decade of his reign.11
Constantine’s family loyally rallied around him and publicly exhibited
their Christian faith in attempts to atone for the tragic deaths in Italy and
to maintain divine support for the dynasty: the emperor and his mother
dedicated the Christian basilicas for Peter and Paul, and his half-sister
10
Origo 5. 13–29, and Zos., Hist Nova II. 17–28 provided the details for the
political maneuvering and military battles between Constantine and Licinius, while
Euseb., Vita Const I. 49–II. 60 covered the religious overtones of the conflicts in these
years. For detailed modern narratives of the period with the legal, numismatic, and
literary evidence for a religious “cold war” between the emperors, read Barnes,
Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 64–77, and Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire,
pp. 162–89.
11
The ancient Christian sources largely covered up the deaths of Crispus and
Fausta in Italy in 326 to protect the reputation of the first Christian emperor, but
the ancient pagan authors of Victor’s Epitome 41. 11–12, and Zos., Hist Nova II. 29
preserved some of the details of this “dynastic tragedy.” Origo 6. 35 detailed the final
succession plan of Constantine by which he established three sons and a nephew
in four prefectures spread across the Roman Empire. For modern accounts of the
“dynastic tragedy,” see Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 219–21, and Odahl,
Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 202–11.
10
Constantia took over the raising of the imperial children and received
baptism with her favorite niece Constantina at a martyr shrine in Rome; the
grandmothers of the Caesars, Constantine’s mother Helena and his motherin-law Eutropia, made ostentatious pilgrimages to Palestine to pray for the
dynasty and build churches; while Constantine himself returned to the east
with great plans to expand and adorn his new capital of Constantinople as
an offering to the Christian God.12
The Augustus had left his loyal Praetorian Prefect Junius Bassus at
Trier to administer the western provinces for him when he had returned
to the east after the Vicennalia; but that was not the same for his provincial
subjects as having a Constantius, a Constantine, or a Crispus governing
in their midst. The northwestern prefecture was the region from which
the Constantinian Dynasty had risen to power, and Constantine wished to
reward and retain the loyalty of his Gallic subjects by setting up another
son as emperor there to represent the imperial family in person. Therefore,
in the spring of 328, he journeyed westward with his oldest son from
Fausta, and, on arriving at Trier in the autumn, he swiftly ensconced
twelve year old Constantine II as the official Caesar, or junior emperor,
of the west. The elder Constantine remained in Gaul for several months
teaching his son how to work through the praetorian prefect in running the
civil administration, and how to work with his military commanders for
securing the frontiers. Father and son jointly fought a successful campaign
against the Alamanni on the Rhine and together held the consulship in early
329. As his son approached his thirteenth birthday, Constantine took leave
of Gaul and traveled eastward along the Danube back to the Bosporus Strait
where he dedicated Constantinople as the new Christian Rome for the east
in May of 330. With the exception of one eastern trip to visit and campaign
with his father above the Danube, Constantine II would effectively govern
and defend the Gallic northwest as a Caesar for nine years, and then, after
his father’s death, as Augustus for three years (Ill. 4 a & b).13
12
Liber Pontificalis XXXIIII: Silvester = The Book of the Popes XXXIIII: Sylvester,
La. text ed. by L. Duchesne in Le Liber Pontificalis (Paris, 1955), with an Eng. trans.
by R. Davis in TTH, vol. 6, The Book of the Pontiffs (Liverpool, 1989), recorded
the dedication of the apostolic basilicas by Constantine and his mother, and the
baptisms of Constantia and Constantina at Rome; Euseb., Vita Const III. 25–58,
recounted the Holy Land pilgrimages of the grandmothers, and Constantine’s
Christian building programs in Constantinople and other eastern cities. For
modern commentary, consult Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 221–23, Richard
Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics (Berkeley, 1983), pp.
7–67, Jerome Murphy O’Conner, The Holy Land, 4th ed. (Oxford, 1998), passim, and
Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 211–20, 232–44.
13
Barnes, New Empire, pp. 77–78, cites the laws in the Codex Theodosianus and
the victory titles on coins and inscriptions which indicated that Constantine and his
son arrived at Trier in 328 and defeated the Alamanni in 329; and Bruun, RIC, Vol.
VII, p. 213 (516 and 517), lists the contemporary coins minted at Trier for the Caesar
in 328–29. Origo 6.35, Vict., Epitome 41. 20, and Zos., Hist Nova II. 39, were the most
11
Ill. 4 a & b: Bronze coin with an obverse bust of Constantine II
as the Noble Caesar, and with a reverse motif of soldiers and
standards with an ankh cross between them (Aquileia, 333).
Although Arles was neither the tetrarchic capital nor the regular
residence of Constantine II as the official Caesar of the northwest, it was the
place of his birth; and the citizens in the city beside the Rhone were proud
of that fact and happy to have their “favorite son” back in the west as their
governing emperor. They expressed this pride in two ways over the next
decade: changing the name of the city to advertise its connection to the
Constantinian Dynasty, and using Christian symbols on the coins of its mint
to reflect its fidelity to the Christianization policy of Constantine and his
family more clearly than the other mint centers of the era.
In his biography of Constantine the Great, Eusebius of Caesarea
mentioned that towns which closed their pagan temples voluntarily and
converted to the Christian religion completely were allowed to rename
themselves after persons in the imperial family. Arles in southern Gaul,
Tomis along the Black Sea, Gaza in southern Palestine, and Cirta in
North Africa were among the renowned towns which did so. In 328,
Arles requested and received permission to rename itself Constantina
after Constantine II when he was installed as the western Caesar. It was
possibly the first city in the empire to be granted this privilege; and, with
Constantinople, one of only two mint cities to be so honored. For the next
twelve years, its mint mark was CONST rather than ARL.14
Eusebius also mentioned that Constantine used many men “devoted to
the saving faith” as officials in the imperial administration. The names and
careers of several Christians who served as provincial governors, diocesan
vicars, and praetorian prefects under Constantine are known from literary
explicit ancient sources for Constantine’s succession plan and territorial divisions of
the empire, placing Constantine II in the northwest. For modern narratives of these
events, read Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 221–23, and Odahl, Constantine and
the Christian Empire, pp. 224–44.
14
Euseb., Vita Const IV. 37–39, described the renaming practice; P.V. Hill, and
J.P.C. Kent, Late Roman Bronze Coinage (London, 1972), pp. 9–11, Bruun, RIC, Vol. VII,
pp. 232–33, 268–79, and Carson, Coins of the Roman Empire, pp. 161–62, record the
new mint mark. Cf. Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, p. 250.
12
references and ancient inscriptions—Aelafius, the Vicar of North Africa
early in the reign, and Ablabius, the Prefect of the East late in the reign, for
instance.15 There were other Christians serving in the government of the
first Christian emperor whose names were never noted in ancient literary
or epigraphic documents. However, their presence can be discerned from
another kind of evidence: the imperial coinage. The mint at Constantinian
Arles appears to be a case in point since the coins it produced in the later
years of Constantine’s reign more often and more systematically displayed
Christian symbols than other mints; and, from what is known of the
minting practices of the late Roman Empire, this would seem to indicate
that the mint officials at Arles were therefore Christians who wished not
only to advertise the city’s connection to the Constantinian Dynasty, but
also to reflect their own adherence to its policy of Christianizing the Roman
world.
In the decade after his Christian conversion, Constantine systematically
removed all the pagan gods from imperial coinage. Hercules, Mars, Jupiter
and even Sol, the deities venerated by the recent tetrarchs, all disappeared
from the coins of the realm. At signal moments and for special reasons, he
carefully introduced Christian symbols in place of the pagan motifs on the
medallions and coins of the Roman Empire.16 For the Decennalia celebration
at Rome in 315, he had special silver medallions minted which depicted
himself in a rare frontal portrait holding a cross scepter topped with a globe
and wearing a high crested helmet displaying a badge with a Christogram
on it (the first two letters of the Greek word Christ in monogramatic form).
This motif combining a terrestrial globe and Christian symbols announced
to the Roman world the new Christian political theory of imperial theocracy
which the emperor and his ecclesiastical advisors were developing: that the
Christian Divinity was the creator of the terrestrial world and the bestower
15
Euseb., Vita Const II. 44 noted this practice of the emperor; Odahl, Constantine
and the Christian Empire, pp. 134–36, 229, 247–49, names several of them.
16
Some of the general studies dealing with the use of Christian symbols on
the coinage of Constantine are Patrick Bruun, “The Disappearance of Sol from the
Coins of Constantine,” Arctos, ser. 2, vol. 2 (1961), pp. 15–37, Guido Bruck, “Die
Verwendung christlicher Symbole auf Münzen von Constantin I. bis Magnentius,”
Numismatische Zeitschrift, vol. 76 (1955), pp. 26–32, Patrick Bruun, “The Christian
Signs on the Coins of Constantine,” Arctos, ser. 2, vol. 3 (1962), pp. 5–35, M. Pierre
Bastien, “Le chrism dans la numismatique de la dynastie constantinienne,”
Collectionneurs et collections numismatiques (Paris, 1968), pp. 111–19, Charles Odahl,
“Christian Symbols in Military Motifs on Constantine’s Coinage,” SAN, vol.
13, 4 (1983), pp. 64–72, Patrick Bruun, “The Victorious Signs of Constantine: A
Reappraisal,” The Numismatic Chronicle, vol. 157 (1997), pp. 41–59, pls. 17–19, and
Wendelin Kellner, “Christuszeichen auf Münzen der Zeit Constantins I und seiner
Sohne,” Money Trend, (September, 1999), pp. 52–57.
13
of earthly power, and that the Christian emperor served as the divinely
sanctioned imperial agent of the Almighty God on earth (Ill. 5).17
Ill. 5: The obverse of the silver Decennalia medallion of Constantine,
depicting the emperor with a Christogram badge at the front of his
helmet and a globular cross scepter in his hand (Ticinum, 315).
In the aftermath of his “holy war” against the Licinian persecution, and
his “holy synod” against the Arian heresy in 324-25, Constantine felt that
he had defeated the Devil in the world and in the Church. To illustrate his
great triumphs, he ordered the erection of a colorful tableau above the entry
portico at his rising new palace in Constantinople, which depicted him
and his sons employing the Christian Labarum to pierce the biblical great
dragon or wriggling serpent whose head plunged downward to the Abyss
of Hell. The tableau has not survived (the Turkish Blue Mosque replaced the
palace complex), but one of the first coin types minted at the new imperial
capital represented it, and showed the emperor’s Christian war standard
(a spear with a crossbar holding a banner carrying imperial portraits, and
the monogram of Christ surmounting it) piercing the great dragon whose
head falls downward. The motif indicated that Constantine felt that he was
The Decennalia medallion is listed by Bruun in RIC, Vol. VII, p. 364, no. 36.
Numismatic analyses of it and its imagery are provided by A. Alföldi, “The Initials
of Christ on the Helmet of Constantine,” Studies in Roman Economic and Social
History in Honor of Allen Chester Johnson (Princeton, NJ, 1951), pp. 303–11 and “Das
Kruzzepter Konstantins des Grossen,” Schweizerische Münzblatter, vol. 4, 16 (1954),
pp. 81–86, Konrad Kraft, “Das Silbermedaillon Constantins des Grossen mit dem
Christusmonogramm auf dem Helm,” Jahrbuck für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte
(1954–55), pp. 151–78, Bruun, “Christian Signs,” pp. 8–10, 23–34, Bastien, “Le
chrism,” pp. 112–13, Odahl, “Christian Symbolism in Military Motifs,” pp. 67–68,
and Kellner, “Christuszeichen auf Münzen,” pp. 52–53. Several modern scholars
have seen the Christian symbolism on this medallion as graphic confirmation of
Constantine’s conversion, and an early attempt of the emperor to portray in art
what he was writing in his Donatist epistles—e.g., Andreas Alföldi, The Conversion
of Constantine and Pagan Rome (Oxford, 1969), pp. 42–43, Ramsay MacMullen,
Constantine (New York, 1969), p. 113, Hermann Dörries, Constantine the Great (New
York, 1972), pp. 42–43, and Charles Odahl, “God and Constantine: Divine Sanction
for Imperial Rule in the First Christian Emperor’s Early Letters and Art,” CHR, vol.
81, 3 (1995), pp. 327–52 and Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 144–46.
17
14
fulfilling biblical apocalyptic prophecies about the destruction of the Devil
and his agents, and the inauguration of the reign of the Saints upon the
earth (Ill. 6 a & b).18
Ill. 6 a & b: Bronze coin of Constantine with reverse motif depicting
the Christian labarum piercing the great dragon and primeval serpent
(the Devil) recalling biblical prophecies (Constantinople, 327-28).
Later, during and for several years after the official dedicatio ceremonies for
his new eastern Christian capital of Nova Roma-Constantinopolis (330), the
emperor had all the mints of the empire issue coinage honoring the city. The
obverse depicted the personification of the capital holding a globular cross
scepter over her shoulder, and the reverse showed a Victory figure standing
on top of a prow, indicating that Nova Roma was a Christian city situated by
the sea (Ill. 7 a & b).19
Ill. 7 a & b: Bronze Constantinople dedicatio coin with the personification of
the new city holding a globular cross scepter on the obverse, and Victory
figure on a prow with a shield on the reverse (Heraclea, 330-35).
Euseb., Vita Const III. 3, described the pierced dragon imagery on the
palace tableau and remarked on the acute insight of the emperor in employing
biblical motifs in his public art; and Bruun, RIC, Vol. VII, p. 572, no. 19, lists the
surviving Constantinopolitan coin motif depicting it. For modern scholarship
on the apocalyptic climate of the era and the Labarum coin motif, consult
MacMullen, Constantine, pp. 136–37, Dörries, Constantine the Great, pp. 58–67,
Charles Odahl, “The Use of Apocalyptic Imagery in Constantine’s Christian
Propaganda,”Centerpoint, vol. 4, 3 (1981), pp. 9–19, Glen F. Chesnut, The First
Christian Histories, 2nd ed. (Macon, GA, 1986), pp. 164–74; and Bruun, “Christian
Signs,” pp. 21–22, Odahl, “Christian Symbols in Military Motifs,” p. 69, and Kellner,
“Christuszeichen auf Münzen,” pp. 55–56.
19
Bruun, RIC, Vol. VII, p. 63, and passim, through the mint lists for the years 33035, discusses and lists the cross scepter dedication coins; cf. Andrew Alföldi, “On the
Foundation of Constantinople: A Few Notes,” JRS, vol. 37 (1947), pp. 10–16, Bruun,
“Christian Signs,” pp. 23–24, and Odahl, “Christian Symbols in Military Motifs,” p.
70.
15
18
Constantine’s use of Christian symbols on the imperial coinage was
thus rather limited and somewhat irregular. He usually kept about a dozen
mints from Trier to Alexandria working in the later years of his reign. The
Augustus and his top finance officials in the central court determined the
obverse portraits, the reverse motifs, and the accompanying inscriptions
which they wished the coins to display, and sent prototypes out to the
regional mints. Yet, the procurator monetae in charge of each imperial mint
and the officinatores who supervised the individual sections therein had the
freedom to choose the control marks which they used on the reverses to
denote the issue within each of the coin types minted. Wreaths, stars, letters,
numbers and various other marks had often served this purpose. However,
with the complete disappearance of the pagan gods from the coins on the
one hand, and the cautious employment of Christian symbols on them by
the court on the other hand, regional mint officials realized that the use of
Christian signs as control marks on the coinage was no longer forbidden.
Mint officials who wanted to reflect the religious policy of the emperor,
or to express their own faith thus began to use Christian symbols in this
manner.20
The officials at Ticinum and Rome employed Greek or Tau crosses as
marks of issue on some of the later bronze SOLI INVICTO COMITI types
from their mints (316 and 318); and the officials at Ticinum, Aquileia,
Siscia and Thessalonica used pin headed Christograms as marks of issue
or imperial rank on the bronze VIRTUS EXERCIT type from their mints
(319-21)—early examples of imperial minters supporting Constantine’s
Christianization policy during the religious “cold war” against Licinius.
The officials at Aquileia employed an ankh cross on one issue of the
bronze GLORIA EXERCITUS type in their mint (Ill. 4 b above); and
officials at Antioch used a new form of the Christ monogram (a cross
and a rho combined into a crossogram) as a mark of imperial rank on the
gold VICTORIA CONSTANTINI AUG type from their mint (336-37)—late
examples of minters reflecting the success of Constantine’s mission to
convert the empire.21
The imperial mints which Constantine most often employed in the later
years of his reign were Trier, Arles, Rome, Aquileia, Siscia, Thessalonica, Heraclea,
Constantinople, Nicomedia, Cyzicus, Antioch and Alexandria. For the organization
and officials in the regional mints, see Bruun, RIC, Vol. VII, pp. 22–24; and for the
use of Christian symbols as control marks on the coins, consult Bruun, “Christian
Signs,” Bastien, “Le chrism,” Odahl, “Christian Symbols in Military Motifs,”
Burnett, Coinage in the Roman World, and Kellner, “Christuszeichen auf Münzen,”
passim in all of these studies.
21
For these examples of the use of Christian crosses and monograms by regional
minters, consult the relevant mint listings and dates in Bruun, RIC, Vol. VII, passim;
and for some modern interpretations, see Bruun, “Christian Signs,” pp. 5–8, 19–21,
25, 29–31, Bastien, “Le chrism,” pp. 113–14, Odahl, “Christian Symbols in Military
Motifs,” pp. 68, 70, 71, Burnett, Coinage in the Roman World, pp. 140–47, and Kellner,
“Christuszeichen auf Münzen,” pp. 54, 56–57.
20
16
The three standard bronze coin types minted across the empire during
Constantine’s last years from 330 to 337 were the CONSTANTINOPOLIS
type celebrating the “New Rome,” an URBS ROMA type commemorating
“Old Rome,” and the GLORIA EXERCITUS type honoring the imperial
army, with only the first type deliberately having Christian symbolism in
the prototype design of its obverse motif. With the exception of the coins
minted at Arles, Christian symbols rarely appeared on the reverses of these
types. The mint officials at Arles, however, regularly employed Christian
signs as control marks on all three of these coin types. In 334, they placed
Christograms as marks of issue beside the Victory figure on the reverse of
the Constantinople type (Ill. 8 a & b), and put them as marks of issue above
the wolf and twins on the reverse of the Rome type (Ill. 9 a & b).
Ill. 8 a & b: Bronze Constantinople coin type with a personification
of the city on the obverse, and with a Victory on a prow and a
Christogram sign as a mark of issue on the reverse (Arles, 334).
Ill. 9 a & b: Bronze Rome coin type with a personification of the
city on the obverse, and with the she wolf and the twins and a
Christogram sign as a mark of issue on the reverse (Arles, 334).
In the same year, they also placed the Christogram as a mark of issue
between the two standards and two soldiers on the reverse motif
celebrating the “Glory of the Army” (Ill. 10 a & b).
Ill. 10 a & b: Bronze “Glory of the Army” coin type carrying a bust of
Constantine on the obverse, and with a Christogram symbol used as an
issue mark between two soldiers and two standards on reverse (Arles, 334).
17
The mint officials at Arles again employed the Christogram symbol as
issue marks on all three of these coin types in the year 336, but with a slight
variation on the GLORIA EXERCITUS type. A decade earlier, Constantine
had issued gold and silver medallions for his vicennial celebrations in the
mints at Rome and Siscia depicting himself holding a simplified labarum
with the monogram moved down onto the banner and the imperial
portraits removed therefrom—a vexillum standard with the emphasis on the
emblem of Christ (Ill. 11).22
Ill. 11: The reverse of a silver Vicennalia medallion of
Constantine showing the emperor holding a vexillum
marked with the Christ monogram (Rome, 326).
A new prototype design for the “Glory of the Army” bronze coins was
introduced in 336 which depicted two soldiers on either side of a single
military standard (instead of the more crowded two standards design
as before). Regional minters were apparently free to decorate the banner
as they wished. At Arles, the mint officials chose to copy the simplified
vicennial vexillum, and decorated it with a Christogram as its mark of issue
(Ill. 12 a & b).
Ill. 12 a & b: Bronze “Glory of the Army” coin type with a bust of
Constantine on the obverse, and the new single military standard
bearing a Christogram as a mark of issue on the reverse (Arles, 336).
For the rare CONSTANTANUS AUG medallions struck at Rome and Siscia
in 326 for the Vicennalia depicting the emperor holding a simplified labarum or
vexillum with just the Christ monogram on it, consult Alfred R. Bellinger, “Roman
and Byzantine Medallions in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,” DO Papers, 12
(Cambridge, 1958), pp. 135–36, Odahl, “Christian Symbols in Military Motifs,” p. 69,
and Kellner, “Christuszeichen auf Münzen, p. 55.
22
18
Ill. 13 a & b: Bronze “Glory of the Army” coin type with a bust of Constans,
youngest son of Constantine on the obverse, and with a St. Andrew’s cross
used as an issue mark on the military banner on the reverse (Arles, 337).
They did the same thing in the following year of 337, using a Chi (X), or St.
Andrew’s cross, as the mark of issue on the two city types, and also on the
military banner between the two soldiers of the glory type (Ill. 13 a & b).23
The more frequent and regular use of Christian symbols as control
marks on the bronze coins produced at the Arles mint as compared to the
other imperial mints in the later years of Constantine’s reign leads to the
conclusion that the mint officials at Arles felt a close connection to the
Constantinian Dynasty, that they were Christian, and that they wished to
support the policy of the dynasty in converting the Roman world to the
Christian religion.24
The practice of employing Christian symbols on imperial coinage which
Constantine cautiously pioneered on a few special coin types, and the Arles
minters frequently reflected on their common bronze coin types, became
the regular policy of Constantine’s heirs and successors in the Christian
empire of late antiquity. Coin types depicting an emperor holding the
simplified labarum carrying the monogram of Christ (Ill. 14 a & b), or an
angel of victory marking a Christogram upon a military shield (Ill. 15 a & b)
23
Hill and Kent, Late Roman Bronze Coinage, pp. 10–11, and Bruun, RIC, Vol. VII,
pp. 275–77, list the Arles’ coin types employing Christian symbols as issue marks
between 334–37. For modern interpretations, see Bruun, “Christian Signs,” pp.
24–25, Bastien, “Le chrism,” p. 114, Odahl, “Christian Symbols in Military Motifs,”
p. 70, Burnett, Coinage of the Roman World, pp. 145–47, Carson, Coins of the Roman
Empire, p. 169, and Kellner, “Christuszeichen auf Münzen,” p. 56.
24
For the broad historical context of this study, and the most detailed biography
of the first Christian emperor with a full use of the numismatic evidence, read
Charles Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire (London, 2004 hb., 2006
expanded pb.).
19
as a part of their prototype designs were minted in large quantities through
the fourth and fifth centuries as paganism was outlawed and Christianity
triumphed across the Roman world.25*
Ill. 14 a & b: Bronze coin of Constantius II, middle son of Constantine I,
depicting the emperor’s bust and titles on the obverse, and the emperor
with a Christogrammed vexillum on the reverse (Nicomedia, late 340s).
Ill. 15 a & b: Bronze coin of Aelia Flaccilla, first wife of Theodosius I,
with her bust and titles on the obverse, and an angel of victory marking
a Christogram on a war shield on the reverse (Antioch, mid 380s).
25
For the frequent use of Christian symbols on the coinage of the later Roman
Empire, consult the mint listings and illustrations through vols. VIII, IX, & X of
Roman Imperial Coinage, and Carson, Hill, and Kent, Late Roman Bronze Coinage; and
the material in Burnett, Coinage of the Roman World, pp. 140ff., and Carson, Coins of
the Roman Empire, pp. 158-218, and passim.
*Illustration credits: 1) author photo; 2) author photo; 3) courtesy of the Stadtbibliothek,
Trier; 4) Odahl collection; 5) courtesy of the Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich; 6) courtesy
of the British Museum, London; 7) Odahl collection; 8) Odahl collection; 9) Odahl collection;
10) courtesy of the British Museum, London; 11) courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington,
D.C.; 12) Odahl collection; 13) Odahl collection; 14) Odahl collection; 15) Odahl collection. The
coin motifs have been enlarged by about 10% for better viewing by the readers of this article.
20