Constantine I. AD 307/310-337.

Æ Follis (19mm, 2.68 g, 6h). Londinium (London) mint. Struck AD 323-324.

CONSTAN-TINVS AG, laureate head right

SARMATIA DEVICTA, Victory advancing right, holding palm and trophy, with left foot on bound captive to right; PLON(crescent).

RIC VII 290 (R2).

Good VF.

The output of the mints at Londinium, Lugdunum, and Treveri served as an important source of propaganda for the entirety of the western empire during the first quarter of the fourth century AD. Constantine and Licinius both drew upon a variety of reverse designs in order to signify such ideas as strength, tranquility, and prosperity, though matters between the two were ever-unstable as war broke out between them in AD 316, most likely over a mutual envy and mistrust of one another. The resulting peace in early AD 317 was short-lived and tensions were only subdued, as hostilities once again gradually increased, culminating in the battle of Chrysopolis in AD 324, the execution of the Licinii, and the sole-reign of the house of Constantine.

In AD 322, Constantine crushed a Sarmatian invasion of the Balkans, an event marked by this coin type. During the action, his army entered the Eastern territories of his co-emperor Licinius, thus triggering the civil war between East and West.