Solidus - Constans PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS, Siscia

Struck at Siscia in 335 AD, this solidus belongs to the period when Constantine the Great elevated his youngest son Constans to the rank of Caesar — a promotion formalized in late 333 AD as part of the dynastic restructuring that would, within two years of Constantine's death, collapse into fratricidal civil war. The PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS title, "Prince of Youth," was a traditional honorific borrowed from early imperial usage, deployed here to legitimize a boy who was likely no older than thirteen at the time of striking.

Siscia was one of the most productive mints of the Constantinian period, situated strategically on the Sava River in Pannonia.