TnADITIO

of a synagogue at Dn ra E nropos7 (Figure I) . The form is the simplest, a han

0THE HAND OF Goo' 3)r _,)

The next example of the symbol (i'igure III) reproduces the form found on the Dura mu ra ls and represents it s first general u se, appearing as it does on the smallest copper coin current in the empire, struck at all mints on t he occasion of the death of Constantine in 337. The reve rse t ype is again unu sual for the period, showing, in all careful examples, th e dead emperor ascending in a quad-riga toward the Manus Dei.14 The closest similar type was the ra re 'Consecra-tion' solidus of Constan ti u s Chloru s, in which the deified pagan emperor is shown in a quadriga, with the attributes of Sol Inv ictus, on an altar (Figure IV).15

The p eriod from Constantius II to Theodosius I, in its toleration and neu-trality toward the advance of Christianity, saw only two examples of the Manus Dei; in these two examples the di stinctl y Christian character of the symbol is most probably the reason for it s genera l absence, inasmuch as Julian was quite unabashed in the returning of unmistakably pagan symbolism to hi s coinage.16

The Mersin medallion17 belongs to the latter p art of the reign of Constantius II , and was privat ely produced. The necklace, of which it was a part, was appa-rently a hygienic charm, and of Christian manufacture, linking as it does Con-stantine and Helena in the plaques forming the necklace proper. It shows the Heavenly Hand honoring the emperor in a pose virtually identical to the offi-cial medallion of A.D. 330 (Figure V). In this instance the subsidia ry fi gures are the sun and moon, personified, thus stressing the emperor, with authority from God, as Cosmocrator, where the imperial medallion had stressed military victory ant! Romanitas.

The fir st bronze issue of Valentinian I from Sirmium, known only by a unique specimen in Budapest, shift s back to the temporal plane, showing the new empero r rece iving a shield from the Manus Dei on which is depicted a swastika-shapecl cross, the whole insc ribed PERPETUITAS IMPERii (Figure VI). The type, no doubt, represents an overreaction to the end of the reign of the pagan Julian. The schola rly consensus18 is that the type was not generally issued since it went far beyond the conservative policy of Valentinian in reli-gious affairs: for, in it s definite Christianity, it could not fail to be offensive to the pagans.

J.1 The rendering of the hand , I he collec tion of th e horses, and the an gle of th e qnadriga arc all subjict lo degrada tion , a common phenomenon of those large-volume copper issues of the fourth century, a fact which will effect th e identification of a la ter example of the !\Janus Dei, but schola rs are agreed that this is the bas ic form of th e type. It must be noted tha t Professor Alfiildi, ' Insignicn und Trachl' (n. 10 s11pm), makes the Hanel be that of th e deified Conslantius Chlorus. H erc h e is on much firmer ground, as this composition was well es tablished as an apotheosis type under Septimus Severus, and may well have had a sculptural prololype; but it had also been adopted by Chrislianily as the 'assumption of Elijah' lon g before as well, and that a llegory, of the restorer of true religion, would have appealed to Christian citizens. There is no inscription with the ty pe Lo bias it in one direc-tion or ano ther; cf. Grabar, Christian Icon ography (n . 8 s11pru) 117, ill. 281 -285 .

is The illustration of Fi gure IV is taken from i\laurice, N 11111ismatique Conslanlinienne,

1. PI. XXII, 8 (Pari s 1908). 16 See I-I . Thieler, ' Der Stier auf den Gross-Kupfermflnzen des .Julianus Aposlata (35:i-

360-363 n . Chr.),' flerliner Nurnisrnatische Zeitschrifl 27 (1962) 49-54,. 17 A. Grabar, 'Un Medaillon de Mersine,' Dumbarton Oaks Papers 6 (1951) esp. 36-40. 18 J. Pearce, ' A New Aes Type of Valentinian I in the Museum at Budapest,' N umismatic

Chronicle, series \I 18 (1938) 126-128; RIC IX, xii, 159n.

326 TRAD ITIO

So far as these early representations have gone, t hey can be v iewed so lely as intrusion s of t he Christian fai t h into im perial iconography; n ow, wit h t he reign of Theodosius, t here is a change which suggest s that Christian a ut hority is being used to bolster t he im perial establishment. The shift occurs almost immediate ly after th e bap tism of Theodosius in A .D . 380: p ersecut ion of pagans ancl heretics is r igoro usly reviewed and, perh aps for t he firs t time, ri gorou sly e nforced;19 and t he Manus Dei reappears on the co in age a rter a t wenty-year absence, honoring t he imperi al nomination or Theodosius' youn g son Arcadiu s (Figure VII). T he fa ct t hat t he Manus Dei is now found on th e obverse of the coin is very important, for wh ile deviation or ar tistic license on the reverse types was not uncommon , the ' imago' of t !;c imperial per son verged on the sacred.20 The u:;e of t he Manus Dei in t his instance c;rn~wt be intendeJ to honor a v ictor-ious emperor , and m ust he interpreted as in dicating th at div ine a ut hority suppo rt s t he elec tio n of t he prince; t hus cl ynastism, already well est ablished in imperial Ro me, call s on t he God of the Chr ist ians to witness the legitimacy of the pr ac tice .

Five years late r T heodosiu s began the issue of the SAL VS RE IPUBL ICAE type in his Aes IV as a reco rd of hi s v ictory over Magnus Maximu s. The b asic reverse t ype of t his issue showed Vict ory car rying a t rophy over one shoulder and dragging a captive with her other arm. In th e fi eld le ft a cross , Christogram, or dot is u sually employed , most proba bly as a sequence mark in t his, the staple issue of copper in t l1e eastern empire from 388 to 393.21 Of t he basic typ e, t her e a re only t wo significant vari a tions : t he first , in which Vict ory is wingless, is peculia r to the mint of Constantinople, and does not a ppear to h ave had an y great significance ; in t he second, m inted at Cyzicus, the troph y is replaced b y the Manu s Dei ove r Vict ory's right shoulcl er .22 (Figure V III) T his use of t he

19 Codex T heodosiam 1s 16.5.5; 10, 7-9 ( Tfleodos ian i Libri XV I , cdd . Th . i\Tommscn a nd I:'. M. Meyer [rcpr. of 2nd ed.; 2 vols in :3; Berlin 1954] 1. 2.856; 8~19).

20 Such Hems as Lhc type of d iadem (pearl or rosc LLc), whelhcr th e obverse inscri p tion was broken or unbroken, a nd L11c s ize of t he b ust, were a l one or anolher ti me carefully differentia ted for t he seni ority of the imperial house members; SCl> Bruun, .H TC V !T 1'i : Pearce, R I C IX xxxvii.

21 These marks exci ted some interest as poss ibly re fl ec ting in some way e it her Lhc pagan-Christian conflict of the raging here tical cris is (Pearce, rue IX x ii), but Bruun's a rgumen ts, cilcd above, probably s till ob lain. T he Manus Dci escapes d ism issa l in Lil e same fas hi on only for iLs overtly Chris li an character (i. e., it canno L be th e imperial sym bol or an a rtis ti c abbrevia tion Lhcreo r, a possibili ty which is ever present with a cross or Chr istogra m) an d the observa tion Lha t field symbo ls or le tters or va riations in Lhe mint mark were the ordi -nary means employed by Lhe im perial min t masters Lo in dicate sequence. If it is t hou ght , however, th a L Lhc Manus Dei fit s 111 orc readily in to Lhose cl isp ules rather th an t he impcria l-poli t ical interpre ta tion I have given iL , on e m ust rc11 1c 111 bc1 Lhat i t was precisely Lhc widely held v iew of t he paga ns Lh aL the ir gods \\'c1c t he source o r Ho man v ictor y which occasioned

Lile De civ i Lafe D ei . 22 F irs t observed by Lim Rev. C. Daniel Clark. Degradatio n of t he ty pe ma kes identifi -

ca tion of the sy mbol di((icul t. Dr. R. A. G. Carson , in a p riva te com m unica tion , expressed t he view t hat wh at we see on th e Cyzicenc co ins is no more t han a degraded Lropaion ; an rl he took no cognizance of the type-var ian t in H. A. G. Carson and J . P. C. Ken t, La le R om an JJronze Co in age II (London 19G5). However, wh ile we find examples or the Manus Dei quilc clear, no such examples ex ist of a pre-degrada lion Lrophy. No sha ft line surv ives on any

TllE HAND 01' GOD ' 327

symbol more closely approximates tl1e fir st imperial theme, that God has granted the victory to Theodosius, and such a recollection of Constantine was not at all contrary to the im age of this secornl re-unifier of the empire . ~ 3 The type-variant is confined to Cyzicus, ho wever, and more th an probably was the idea of the local mint magistrate; but the mingling of the Christian symbol with the pagan type moves imperial coin age farther down the road which would even-tually see the male Christian a ngel replace the female pagan Nike on the issues of Anastasiu s.

\Ve might anticipate, in view of the elevation issue of Arcaclius, that the next three similar issues would also employ the Manu s Dei, but it is fo und on! y on that of Eudoxia (Figure IX) in A.D . 400. Although it might be arg ued that Honorius was an emergency replacement for the murdered Valentinian,24 that his elevation was not considered in dynastic terms, or that the seniority and primacy of Arcadius and the eastern empire were stressed by the omission, no argument can be a dvanced to account for the failure of the symbol to appear on Theodosius II's elevation issue. An examination of the later-fifth-century examples shows, instead, that another, subtle change has occurred in imperial iconography: the symbol, on the coin obverses regularly appears with the fe-male members of the imperial house, Honoria, Galla Placicla, E uclocia, and E udoxia (Figure XI) 25 but only on one of the issues of t he male contingent,26

that of Valcntinian III (Figure X II). The inference to be drawn is that, through the empresses honored, divine favor protects the succession of the legitimate

example I have seen of Lhis issue to reproduce Lhe pole on whicl1 a trophy would rest, and there is plainly an artistic difficulty present in the treatment of Victory's right arm: the official proLoLype h as Victory's righL arm extended Lo support the trophy shaft , and this feature is retained in the Cyzicus variant with no function. Thus t he artist occasionally has the right hand reaching up to grasp the E or I of the inscription, or simply terminates the arm in a rectangular block or cube. G. Bruck, Die spii lromisclle ](11pferpriig11ng (Graz 1961) 61, saw sufficient difference to rate the Cyzicene reverse type as a major var iant of SALVS REIPUBLICAE, but did noL recogn ize t he Manus Dei symbol.

23 The attemp t of Magnus Maximus to obtain Church sanction o[ his usurpation by his persecu tion of the Priscillians illustra tes well t h e value of Christian opinion in the imperia l mind; cf. Ambrose, Ep. 2-1.

24 The solitary example of the Manus IJei associated with Honorius is as a reverse type of his first Havenna minL solidi , in the traditional 'victorious Christian prince pose, celc-brating the defeal of Gild o the Moor (symbolized by an expired lion ly ing al the emperor's feet; cf. Claudian, De be/lo Gi ldonico 1.358-359) (Plate X) . These coins were issued in A.D . 402.

25 In addition to the illuslratecl gold and copper examples o[ the Manus Dei on Lhe o!Jvcrse, Lwo issues o[ Acs III repealed and expanded Lhc type on the reverse, showing Lhc empress enthroned with the Manus above: inscribed CONCORD IA A VG for P ulcheria , P lacida, and Eudocia at Constantinople, and GLOR IA ROMANOHUM for Eudoxia al all the eastern mints.

26 A badly damaged sptcimen of Lhe Constantinople mint, reverse inscribed CONCORDIA AGV (Carson and Kent, Lale Roman B ronze Co inage [n. 21 supra] 90, no. 2232) wilh the Manus Dei on the obverse, h as been tentatively assigned to Theodosius II and dated ca. ,130; bul neith er the inscription nor the bust is clear enough Lo make this attribulion certain.

328 Tl\ADITIO

imperial house, or, more simply , that succession ' in the purple' is maintained by God.27

This las t and highly restricted use of the symlJOl is a prelude to it s demise ; under Valentinian III the Hand disappears, and only a wreath remain s (Figure XIII). The more general and more easily rendered nimbus,28 of solid pagan ancestry - used rarely by Constantine, Valentinian I, and Valens, and popu-larized by Theodosiu s I - becomes the almost exclusive mark of divine fa vor and protection. Even in its rest ricted use the symbol is absent, as on the mar-riage solidu s of Marci an and Pulchcria (Figure X IV), where the thern e of div ine endor sement of the royal nuptia ls shows, instead, the full figure of Christ blessing t he couple.

Yet t he Manus Dei was not entirely forgotten. It became a device by which the usurper Basiliscus, during the reign of Zeno, sought to establi sh an instant dynast y . Coins were issued for his wife Zeonis with the same obverse represen-tation of the Manus Dei which had adorned the co ins of the earlier-fifth-century empresses.20

The Manus Dei has yet a long histo ry in medieval European and later -Byza n-tine art, but it mu st develop once again from its origin, in the full light of the Christian day, as a symbol of God the Father, or of the Goel of the Old Testam ent. Thu s the Exarchat e mosaics of Havenna show the Manus Dei over the saints of old, while the imperial family is nimbate.

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