Death of Constantine the Great - Divine Constantine the Great

Constantine I the Great​

Like the emperor Augustus before him, Constantine I adjusted his public image to meet the changing status of his political career. With Constantine's defeat of Licinius I at Chrysopolis in AD 324, the empire was once again a unified state under a single emperor, a situation that had not existed since the accession of Diocletian some forty years earlier.

Soon after celebrating Easter in AD 337, Constantine the Great fell ill near Nikomedia [ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΙΑ] and took to his bed. Realising that the end was near, he had himself baptized and died on May 22 as the first Christian emperor. To commemorate his death and celebrate his memory, commemorative coins were struck depicting the dead emperor in mourning clothes, following the old Roman tradition of CONSECRATIO [Consecration] coinages produced to honour members of the imperial family who had ascended to the gods.

However, since Constantine was a Christian it was not appropriate to suggest that he had undergone an apotheosis as a new divine emperor. Instead, he is shown on the reverse of this impressive gold solidus riding a chariot into heaven to be received into the hand of God.

Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea [ΕΥΣΕΒΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΕΙΑΣ] states the following in his Vita Constantini [IV.73] about the ancient coin minted in memory of Constantine the Great after his death:... On one side appeared the figure of our blessed prince, with the head closely veiled; the reverse exhibited him sitting as a charioteer, drawn by four horses, with a hand [Manus Dei] stretched downward from above to receive him up to heaven.

Coin obverse legend DIVVS CONSTANTINVS AVG PATER AVGG - Divus Constantinus Augustus Pater Augustorum: Divine Emperor Constantine, Father of Emperors [The legend AVG is abbreviation for Augustus. Each letter G after the AVG legend represents an emperor]. Rev. CONS - Constantinople.



Constantine's mother Helena was very instrumental in his shift to Christianity. She achieved sainthood by her visits to Jerusalem and discovery of a cache of relics of Christ's crucifixion including the True Cross that was venerated for centuries after Constantine's other massive and history-shaping achievement was moving the imperial capital to a New Rome, construction of which commenced 326 on the site of the small, existing Greek city of Byzantium. Dedicated on May 11, 330, the new world capital became known as Constantinople and so remained for eleven centuries. Central to both the western and eastern halves of the Empire, the glittering new city was far easier to defend than the old Rome.