Constantine I — Follis, PROVIDENTIAE AVGG, Nicomedia

Struck at Nicomedia, AD 328–329, this follis comes from the second officina of the mint, marked SMNB in the exergue, in the last decade of Constantine I's reign (AD 306–337). The portrait is the pearl-diademed head that replaced the laurel wreath on his later coinage, the diadem being the mark of a monarch rather than a magistrate.

PROVIDENTIAE AVGG, "to the Foresight of the Augusti", frames a camp gate with two turrets and no doors, its stone courses drawn as a grid, with a star above. The open gate and the walls stand for the fortified frontier the emperors' foresight was said to guarantee, and the type was struck across the empire's mints in these years.

Attribution: RIC VII Nicomedia 153Mint: Nicomedia (SMNB)Weight: 3.29 gDiameter: 20 mmCatalogued in the NumisLens cabinet — NL-VKETT-J97YK

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