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Antoninianus - Constantius I VIRTVS AVGG, Hercules
| Issuer | Roman Empire (27 BC - 395 AD) |
|---|---|
| Year | 294 |
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| Value | Antoninianus (1) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | Hercules stands to the right beside the apple-tree of the Hesperides, holding a club in his right hand and one of the golden apples in his left hand. The sacred tree is depicted with a serpent (the dragon Ladon) coiled around its trunk, referencing the eleventh labor of Hercules. The exergue contains the officina and mint mark XXIT. The composition is framed by a beaded border, with the reverse legend distributed across the field to either side of the central figure. |
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| Additional information |
Constantius I struck this issue as Caesar under the Tetrarchy, the four-man governing structure Diocletian formalized in 293 AD partly to manage the empire's chronic frontier crises and succession instability. The VIRTVS AVGG legend — virtus of the Augusti, plural — is a deliberate piece of ideological work, projecting unified military virtue across all four rulers despite the fact that Constantius and Galerius held the junior Caesar rank, not Augustus, at this date.
RIC V.2 670C places this among the Lyon mint issues, a mint Constantius controlled directly as the ruler responsible for the western provinces including Britain and Gaul.