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Lot of 2 AE4 Constantine the Great Consecration Commemoratives
Soon after the Feast of Easter 337, Constantine fell seriously ill. He left Constantinople for the hot baths near his mother's city of Helenopolis. There, in a church his mother built in honor of Lucian the Apostle, he prayed, and there he realized that he was dying. He attempted to return to Constantinople, making it only as far as a suburb of Nicomedia. He summoned the bishops, and told them of his hope to be baptized in the River Jordan, where Christ was written to have been baptized. He requested the baptism right away, promising to live a more Christian life should he live through his illness. The bishops, Eusebius records, "performed the sacred ceremonies according to custom." It has been thought that Constantine put off baptism as long as he did so as to be absolved from as much of his sin as possible. Constantine died soon after at a suburban villa called Achyron, on 22 May 337.LT88496. Bronze Lot, Lot of 2 billion reduced centenionales, EF, dark patinas with earthen deposits, c. 15 - 16mm, Antioch and Alexandria mint, posthumous, late 347 - 348 A.D.; obverse DV CONSTANTINVS P T AVGG (Divus Constantinus Pater Trium Augusti = Divine Constantine, father of the three emperors), veiled bust right; reverse VN - MR (venerabilis memoria - revered memory), Constantine standing slightly right, head right, veiled and togate, raising right hand, SMANH/SMALΓ in exergue; the actual coins in the photograph, no tags or flips, 2 coins; SOLD
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