Constantius Chlorus — Radiate, CONCORDIA MILITVM, Cyzicus, AE Fraction

Struck at Cyzicus between 295 and 299 AD, in the years when Diocletian's Tetrarchy was still holding together as its architects intended. Constantius Chlorus appears here as Caesar, the junior emperor of the West — the obverse legend FL VAL CONSTANTIVS NOB CAES names him Flavius Valerius Constantius, Most Noble Caesar, a rank he held from 293 until his elevation to Augustus in 305. The issue is catalogued under Diocletian as senior Augustus of the college, though the portrait is Constantius Chlorus. He is the father of Constantine the Great.

The reverse legend reads CONCORDIA MI-LITVM — Concordia Militum, the harmony of the soldiers. Jupiter stands at left, leaning on his sceptre, handing a small Victory on a globe to Constantius, who stands at right, draped and cuirassed, to receive it. It is the Tetrarchy's central claim put into a single image: authority passes down from Jupiter himself to the emperors he has chosen, and the army stands behind that arrangement. The exergue carries KB, the mark of the second officina at Cyzicus.

Attribution: RIC VI Cyzicus 19aMint: Cyzicus (KB)Weight: 3.19 gDiameter: 21 mmCatalogued in the NumisLens cabinet — NL-KBGD8-00G1J

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