The SOLI INVICTO COMITI ("To the Unconquered Sun, Companion") coinage of Licinius I belongs to a politically charged moment: the years immediately following the Edict of Milan in 313, when Licinius and Constantine were nominally co-rulers but practically rivals. Licinius's continued promotion of Sol Invictus was not mere tradition — it was a deliberate ideological counter to Constantine's increasingly Christian-aligned propaganda. The Rome mint, operating under territory that shifted between their spheres of influence, was producing coinage for a man whose control of it was never entirely secure.
RIC VII 42 is a scarcer Rome mint issue within the type. The first serious rupture between the two emperors came in 316–317, making this 315 emission a product of the last nominally stable year of their alliance.
The SOLI INVICTO COMITI ("To the Unconquered Sun, Companion") coinage of Licinius I belongs to a politically charged moment: the years immediately following the Edict of Milan in 313, when Licinius and Constantine were nominally co-rulers but practically rivals. Licinius's continued promotion of Sol Invictus was not mere tradition — it was a deliberate ideological counter to Constantine's increasingly Christian-aligned propaganda. The Rome mint, operating under territory that shifted between their spheres of influence, was producing coinage for a man whose control of it was never entirely secure.
RIC VII 42 is a scarcer Rome mint issue within the type. The first serious rupture between the two emperors came in 316–317, making this 315 emission a product of the last nominally stable year of their alliance.