Roman Imperial Coins RIC Volume 8(1).pdf

THE

ROMAN IMPERIAL

COINAGE

EDITED BY

C. H. V. SUTHERLAND, C.B.E., M.A., D.Litt., F.B.A., F.S.A.

Emeritus Student of Christ Church, Oxford

Formerly Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

AND

R. A. G. CARSON, M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A.

Keeper of Coins and Medals in the British Museum

VOLUME VIII

THE FAMILY OF CONSTANTINE I

A - D - 337-3 6 4

J. P. C. KENT, B.A., Ph.D., F.S.A.

Deputy Keeper of Coins and Medals in the British Museum

LONDON

SPINK & SON LTD

1981

GENERAL EDITORS' FOREWORD

More than a decade has elapsed since the preparation of the present volume

was announced in the foreword to vol. VI, the last in date to be published

in this series. That interval of time underlines the difficult nature of the work

which Dr J. P. C. Kent has carried out. Each successive volume in the

series has shown the need for ever more accurate analysis and arrangement;

and this greater precision, so evident in vol. IX, and increasingly employed

in vols. VI and VII, is no less painfully necessary for the period from A.D. 337

to 364, in which we count ourselves fortunate to have been able to call upon

Dr Kent's long experience and detailed knowledge. We believe that his

treatment of this period in vol. VIII will be most gratefully welcomed, by all

numismatists and historians.

With this volume the original scope of The Roman Imperial Coinage, as first

conceived by Harold Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham when vol. I appeared

in 1923, has been fulfilled. After more than fifty years the series which they

planned now stands complete. Its standards and its objectives have changed

with the years, and it has ended up more like a corpus than like the manual

that was originally intended. It may yet develop further. Material for a

tenth volume, as already foreshadowed, down to the reform of Anastasius, has

for long been forming in Dr Kent's hands; and revision of certain earlier

volumes (notably I and V) has been begun in order to remedy obvious

deficiencies. The extent to which these further projects can be carried

forward depends on the extent of public support. If this were forthcoming,

then the editor and the publishers (to whom the editors, through Mr

Howard Linecar, are deeply indebted) would feel that still wider objectives

could be achieved.

C. H. V. SUTHERLAND

R. A. G. CARSON

vii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The coinage of the middle years of the fourth century A.D. is common in all

metals, but it is among the least known series of antiquity. Magnentius alone

has inspired the preparation of a corpus; even Julian is represented only by

a handful of studies, none of them entirely satisfactory. There is indeed a

great demand from archaeologists for an accurate presentation of the base-

metal issues found in such abundance throughout the Empire; Late Roman

Bronze Coinage has remained in print for twenty years, testimony to the need

for a reliable handbook. Yet this general neglect of the period is of twentieth-

century growth, and in the late nineteenth century, the elucidation and

presentation of late Roman coinage in the hands of savants like Missong

and Hettner attained a level that was not to be surpassed for almost a

century. In Britain Sir George Hill, on the Continent O. Voetter, mark the

end of an era of real comprehension and interest.

As the Bibliography will show, there is no great body of studies on which

it has been possible to base this work. Even today, few scholars work on the

numismatic material, though, with the securer datings made possible by

LRBC, there is an increasing number of studies of the currency. Coinage of

the Houses of Valentinian and Theodosius was the great love of the late

J. W. E. Pearce, but surviving notes show that he was not unmindful of

earlier coinage. Although his published work on that period is confined to

some very pertinent observations on contemporary imitations, there is little

doubt that, had he come to numismatic studies a younger man, he would

in due course have turned his attention to the sons of Constantine.

The coinage of 337-364 has been presented along broadly traditional lines,

though the actual appearance of the page has been lightened by the aban

donment of many of the heavy vertical rules. There are two significant

changes of terminology: the knowledge of metallic composition gained over

the last sixteen years has led to the general definition of the base-metal

coinages as 'Base Billon and Bronze'; and the loaded word 'Rarity' has been

replaced by the neutral 'Frequency'—it would be absurd to think of many

entries having 'rarity' in any meaningful sense. The determination of

'frequency' is necessarily subjective; it has been arrived at by considering

the composition of hoards and site-finds, by totalling separate specimens in

public collections and sale catalogues, and, not least, by drawing upon the

expertise of colleagues. Clearly, a single large hoard in which an unusual issue

happens to be well represented might easily distort frequency, but an attempt

has been made to take account of this, and I have not simply set a total of

specimens against a numerical scale.

Every generation and each student have their predilections in the field

of study, and the Introduction faithfully reflects this in the discussion of vota,

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