Arcadius received the title of Augustus in January 383, aged perhaps five or six, elevated by his father Theodosius I in a deliberate move to secure dynastic succession following the usurpation of Magnus Maximus in the West. The VOT V vows coinage — pledging the completion of five-year vow cycles — was a formulaic instrument of legitimacy, here applied to a child emperor who held no independent authority whatsoever. Constantinople's mint was the natural issuing point; Theodosius had made the city his administrative base after Adrianople left the Danubian frontier in ruins.
Arcadius received the title of Augustus in January 383, aged perhaps five or six, elevated by his father Theodosius I in a deliberate move to secure dynastic succession following the usurpation of Magnus Maximus in the West. The VOT V vows coinage — pledging the completion of five-year vow cycles — was a formulaic instrument of legitimacy, here applied to a child emperor who held no independent authority whatsoever. Constantinople's mint was the natural issuing point; Theodosius had made the city his administrative base after Adrianople left the Danubian frontier in ruins.