Interesting. It seems unlikely to me that Constantine would have tried to invoke the Parthian War in the aftermath of his victory over a fellow Roman army (presumably Constantine would not want to alienate Maxentius' surviving soldiers, who perhaps could be incorporated into Constantine's own army).
The SPQR standards
type doesn't seem too objectionable from that POV since the
type itself is really just the "
OPTIMO PRINCIPI" brag with a nod to the army via the standards design. The Sol with
captives type would seem much more offensive, which is maybe why they are so
rare excepting at
Aquileia where the captive is depicted as a foreigner!
An alternative sequence/dating of
types, which on consideration I'm currently favoring, is that the Trier gold SPQR (but obviously not the
Italian ones) was issued earlier, maybe c.310, which would have meant that any Trajanic Dacian war association was replaced by this more proximate Constantinian one.
We'd then have
Alexander of
Carthage copying
Constantine, rather than copying
Trajan, which really makes more sense.
Alexander also copied another of Constantine's Trier gold
types,
VBIQVE VICTOR, which adds to the intrigue. Were they in cahoots at this point? The non-numismatic evidence for an
alliance is very slim - just a "
Constantine &
Alexander augusti"
inscription from Alexander's territory, AFAIK, but the copying of coin
types perhaps supports this.
Constantine's post-war use of the SPQR
type, now in bronze hence for a wider audience, might be seen as one way of finessing the issue of civil war celebration ... concentrating on the principis (
Constantine & colleagues who he also issued it for), rather than the defeated Maxentian troops.
So, why might
Constantine have issued the gold Trier
SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI c.310 ?
- Inviting the comparison to
Trajan, to add to
his portfolio of manufactured "right to rule" (descended from
Claudius, blessed by
Apollo) given the unseemly demise of
his auctor imperii !
- Echoes of
PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS which dominate
his 310 Trier gold reform
The
type is a
bit of a stretch for
Constantine regardless of when we date it, both the "
SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI" lie and having to discard Trajan's corona civica association on the
Ticinum solidus. Given that the senate (the S of SPQR) did award
Constantine a title ("
maximus augustus") for
his defeat of
Maxentius, it would seem rather ironic if he'd initiated a claim of being awarded "
optimo principi" instead at that time! It perhaps makes more sense if he'd already set the earlier (dubious) precedent for use of the
type, then continued it as a convenient post-war feel-good
type, not really offensive, and generic enough (given that "
spqr optimo principi" wasn't meant to be taken literally) that he could use it for
his colleagues too.
Ben
