IN the collection of the Centre forCoins, Culture and Religious Historythere is an unusual coin that wasminted at Rome in 320 AD. (Figure 1)On the obverse there is the head ofLicinius I who was the ruler of theeastern half of the Roman Empire, andon the reverse there is a puzzling setof letters in the exergue. (Figure 2) Thefirst letter on the left is R, which standsfor Rome, and the last letter on the rightis S, which stands for secunda meaningthe second (factory). Between these let-ters there are four Greek letters, ερως(eros), and three of the letters are inthe form of a monogram. The lettershave been separated in Figure 3. Eros

means “love”, but why is this word inthe exergue? To answer the questionone needs to know something about thehistory of the Roman Empire at thetime.When Diocletian became the emperorin 284 he realized that the empire wastoo large to be ruled by one man and heestablished a system (called a tetrar-chy) by which the empire was ruled byfour men. He appointed Maximian to bethe Augustus (chief ruler) in the west-ern half of the empire while he was theAugustus in the eastern half, and heappointed Galerius to be his deputy(Caesar) in the east and Constantius tobe the Caesar in the west. Constantius’

son, Constantine, was very ambitious,and when Constantius died in Britainin 306 he declared himself to be theAugustus in the west. Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in305 and Galerius succeeded Diocletianas Augustus in the east. When Constan-tius died in 306 Galerius appointedSeverus to be the Augustus in the westand Constantine reluctantly acceptedthe title of Caesar. Also in 306 Maxen-tius, the ruler of Italy, claimed the titleof Caesar, and when Severus invadedItaly Maxentius defeated him and ex-ecuted him. Galerius then appointedhis comrade Licinius to be the Augus-tus in the west.

Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome. (Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Lalupa)

A billon centenionalis with Licinius I on the obverse. On the reverse VOT XX means vows or promises made by Licinius for the next 20 years, and the legend means ‘to our lord Licinius Augustus. Sear 15338.

When Galerius died in 311 Liciniusand Constantine agreed to have apeaceful relationship. In 312 Constan-tine invaded Italy and defeated Max-entius in the Battle of the MilvianBridge just north of Rome. Constantinelater claimed that a cross had appearedin the sky before the battle and Christhad given him the victory. Constantinethen ruled Italy and the western halfof the empire, and in 313 he met withLicinius at Milan to formalize theiralliance and issue the Edict of Milanwhich established tolerance for all

religions. Previously Galerius and Dio-cletian had persecuted the Christians.Also in Milan Licinius married Con-stantine’s half-sister, Constantia, and in315 their son Licinius Junior, was born.Now we are in a position to under-

stand the significance of the word “eros”on the coin, and there are several poss-ible explanations which we will con-sider in turn. Firstly, did it refer to themarital union of Licinius and Constan-tia, whose son was five years old in 320and appears on the obverse of some ofthese eros coins? (Figure 4) Eros was

the Greek word for “love” in the senseof sexual desire, and the Greek godEros was the son of Aphrodite, the god-dess of female beauty and sexual allure,and Ares, the god of war. To the RomansAphrodite was known as Venus, andAres as Mars. Eros was usually por-trayed as a child with wings and a bow

Figure 2 – Detail of Figure 1.

Figure 3 – Diagram showing the individual letters in the exergue.

Figure 4 – A billon centenionalis of Licinius IIas Caesar minted at Rome in 320. The legend onthe reverse means ‘of our Caesars’. Sear 15438.(Roma Numismatics Ltd, E-Sale 54, Lot 897)

Figure 5 – Bronze coin of Maximinus I (235 –238) minted at Deultum in Thrace. 19 mms.On the reverse Eros rides a dolphin. He wasa fun-loving boy. Varbanov 2434. (Centre forCoins, Culture and Religious History)

and arrow. (Figure 5 and 6) He was amischievous boy who delighted in shoot-ing people with his invisible arrows andonce pierced they would fall in lovewith whoever they were with at thetime, usually with hilarious results. Ina famous statue we see him gettingready. (Figure 7) No one was safe fromhis arrows, not even his mother and theother gods. In a painting by PompeoBatoni, the goddess Artemis has takenEros’s bow away from him. To the Ro-mans Artemis and Eros were knownas Diana and Cupid. (Figure 8)It is unlikely that the eros coins referto Licinius and Constantia. The word“eros” is not generally used for thebond between husband and wife, andnot only Licinius I and II appear onthese coins but Constantine and hissons Crispus and Constantine II. (Fig-ures 9, 10 and 11)Another possible ex-planation is that the word “love” refersto Constantine’s Christian faith. It oc-curs often in the Christian scripturesboth as a verb and a noun. In John’sgospel the author wrote that God soloved the world that he gave his onlySon (John 3:16), and in the First Letterof John the author wrote that God islove (1 John 4:8). In Christian theologythe idea of love is central, but in theNew Testament, which was originallywritten in Greek, the Greek word usedfor love is αγαπη (agape) which essen-tially means a self-giving concern forothers. The word ερως (eros) does notoccur in the New Testament. It is important to understand that inthe ancient Greek language there werefour words for “love”. The language ismore precise than English in this re-gard. In English “love” is a much-abusedword, e.g. “I love meat pies.” In Greek

Figure 7 - Marble statue of Eros stringing his bow in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. It is aRoman copy of a statue by Lysippus of Sicyon in Greece, c. 340 BC. (Wikimedia Commons)

Figure 6 – Bronze coin of Septimius Severus (193 – 211) minted at Nicopolis ad Istrum. 16 mms. On the reverse Eros holds a torch, which refers to the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche, in which Eros himself falls in love. (Centre for Coins, Culture and Religious History)

there are four words for “love”: eros forsexual desire, philia for non-sexual at-traction such as between friends or aliking for something, storge for naturalaffection as between a mother and child,and agape (pronounced a-gar-pay).Therefore it is unlikely that the worderos on the coins referred to Constan-tine’s Christian faith. Although Constantine claimed to be

converted when he defeated Maxentius,the sun-god Sol continued to appear onhis coins until about 320 AD, and hewas not baptized until he was dying in337. He was aware that Christianitywas becoming popular in the empireand he decided to get on the bandwagon.He was not the devout Christian asoften portrayed in later Christian lit-erature. David Vagi in his book, Coinage

and History of the Roman Empire,wrote, “On the one hand he was a self-assured emissary of God, and on theother he was an utterly ruthless mur-derer and a single-minded aggressorwho would go to any length to becomesole emperor.” Vagi’s assessment soundsharsh but it is probably true.So, what is the explanation for erosbeing on these coins? In the nineteenth

Figure 8 – ‘Diana and Cupid’ by Pompeo Batoni, 1761, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Wikimedia Commons)

Figure 9 – Billon centenionalis of Constantine I minted at Rome in 320. RIC VII, 225. (Roma Numismatics Ltd, E-Sale 47, Lot 819)

century it was realized that the Latinword for love was AMOR and that itwas a type of palindrome, i.e. it meantsomething whether read forwards orbackwards. When read backwards it isROMA, the city minting these coins.This explanation is supported by thefact that the eros exergue occurs notonly on coins with the VOT reversesbut on coins with the goddess Roma on

the reverse, and the legend surround-ing the goddess is ROMAE AETER-NAE (to eternal Rome). (Figure 12) Victor Clark is a coin dealer (Victor’sImperial Coins) who has a master’sdegree in history, and in an article en-titled ‘Romae Aeternae – A CuriousCryptogram’, which is on his websitewww.constantinethegreatcoins.com, hediscusses the matter. He says that the

Romans were fond of palindromes andthere is a famous example in Virgil’sAeneid (4:37), where Aeneas said toDido that the oracle commanded himto go to the land of his “amor”, whichis Roma. Victor goes on to say that thepalindrome refers to the great templeof Venus and Roma in Rome. (Figure 13)The temple of Venus and Roma wasbuilt by the emperor Hadrian in 135 and

Figure 10 – Billon centenionalis of Crispus as Caesar minted at Rome in 320. RIC VII, 229.(Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung Auction 204, Lot 2582)

was the largest in Rome. (Figure 14) Itwas damaged by fire in 307 but re-stored by Maxentius (306 – 312) andfeatured on his coins. (Figure 15) Todayit is a ruined, but still impressive site,south-east of the Colosseum. What wasunusual about this temple was thatthe two goddesses were back to back.They were like the palindrome, AMOR(Venus) and ROMA (Rome). This situ-ation is clearly shown on a plan of thetemple, which was really two templesfacing in opposite directions. The black

rectangles represent the platforms onwhich the statues of the seated god-desses stood. (Figure 16) Hadrian spokeLatin and must have known the palin-drome because he designed the templein that way. But there is more to this story aboutthe eros coins. In his article Victorreferred to a book by the great numis-matist Andrew Alföldi entitled TheConversion of Constantine and PaganRome (translated by Harold Mattinglyin 1998) in which he suggested that eros

Figure 11 – Billon centenionalis of Constantine II as Caesar minted at Rome in 320. RIC VII, 231. (Numismatik Naumann Auction 76, Lot 557)

Figure 12 – Billon centenionalis of Constan-tine I minted at Rome in 320. On the reverseRoma holds a shield with X / V on it, and thelegend is ROMAE AETERNAE (to eternalRome). RIC VII 195. (Image courtesy of Victor’sImperial Coins)

Figure 13 – The Temple of Venus and Roma in 2015.(Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Mainly Twelve)

in the exergue might have been an attempt by the paganaristocracy of Rome to use the old religion of mystery andromance to confront the pro-Christian policies of Con-stantine. Although Constantine had justified his invasionof Italy in 312 by accusing Maxentius of being a crueltyrant, Maxentius had generated favour with the Romansby restoring their temple of Venus and Roma and by othermeasures, and many Romans would have been disap-pointed by the result of the battle of the Milvian Bridge. Ina personal communication Victor said that numismatists

had been talking about the subject of the cryptogram foryears. He went on to say, “As to whether Alföldi was the firstto suggest the Roman aristocracy was being passive aggres-sive towards Constantine, he may have been; but I suspectothers had similar ideas before him.” Perhaps the pro-Maxentius Romans were too frightenedof Constantine to point more plainly to the restored templethat meant so much to them. Julius Caesar had claimed de-scent from Venus, and there were temples all over the em-pire to Roma and Augustus, the first Roman emperor.Because Constantine and the Romans spoke Latin, on thecoins the reference to the temple of the two goddesses wasin Greek, and just to be on the safe side, the letters werepartially overlaid on one another. The fear of Constantinemust have been great, but despite the danger these coinswere minted to remind the people of their favourite god-desses. Even today they have not been forgotten: when welook up at the sky and see the evening star we think of thatbeautiful goddess and her rascally son, and we still speakof Rome as the eternal city, as on the coin in Figure 12.

� � � Figure 14 – Sestertius of Hadrian (117 – 138) with the Temple of Venusand Roma on the reverse. Sear 3649. The single columns on eitherside probably represent the rows of columns that enclosed the wholesite. (Classical Numismatic Group, Mail Bid Sale 67, Lot 1473)

Figure 15 – Follis of Maxentius (306 – 312) with Roma seated in hertemple on the reverse. The reverse legend means ‘preserver of hercity’. Sear 14983. (Classical Numismatic Group, Electronic Auction206, Lot 412)

Figure 16 – Plan of the Temple of Venus and Roma. (Wikimedia Commons)

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