Constantine "the Great", posthumous issue, AE3

Constantine I “the Great,” AE3, bronze, posthumous commemorative under Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans, AD 337–340; 1.71 g; 17 mm; Antioch mint. DV CONSTANTINVS PT AVGG around veiled head of Constantine right. Constantine I veiled and draped, riding right in a quadriga; the Hand of God reaches down to him. Struck at Antioch shortly after Constantine’s death as part of the imperial consecration series. RIC VIII Antioch 39.

Issued after Constantine’s death in 337, this commemorative identifies him as DV CONSTANTINVS PT AVGG (“the deified Constantine, father of the Augusti”), affirming his apotheosis and the legitimacy of his sons’ rule. The quadriga scene with the Manus Dei is among the earliest explicit Christian motifs on Roman coinage, signaling the fusion of imperial ideology with Christian symbolism in the early Constantinian dynasty and reflecting Antioch’s role as a principal eastern mint in disseminating this message across the empire.