Hello everybody,
I'd like to show you a
Licinius II from my
collection today. I bought it about a year and a half ago, and, thinking it over, I think I was quite lucky to get it.
In 317 AD, the first civil war between
Constantine and Licinius ended. At this point,
Crispus,
Constantine II and Licinius were appointed Caesars, the latter two being babies or, at most, infants. At the
mint of
Nicomedia, which was in Licinius'
part of the empire, a series of coins for the new Caesars was minted, obviously in a very hurried manner. The
obv. portrait is giant, compared with the ones on
subsequent issues (see ecoli's coin in
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=23609.0), and it can by no means depict a boy of two years. The mint-workers did their best to accomplish a
portrait of
fine, dignified
style, but obviously
had no idea what the
portrait was to look like,
nor what legends to use for the Caesars. The legends on this very
rare first emission are FL VN
CRISPUS NO CAS, F CL
CONSTANTINUS NOV CS, and the following:
Obv. VA CO
LICI - NIUS NOV CS (N CS is also known)
Laureate, draped (and, acc. to
RIC,
cuirassed?
)
bust left
Rev. IOVI CONS - ERVATORI AUGG
Jupiter, naked, with
chlamys over l. shoulder, leaning on
sceptre,
Victory on globe in r. hand, palm-branch on ground left,
mintmark 
/
SMNRIC 26, r5 (a specimen in
Vienna),
aEF / EF condition.
Rupert
