Equestrian statuette of Constantine I. North Italy, 320-325 or later. Bronze

Although the surface is abraded, the statuette is intact. It depicts an emperor, wearing a crown with solar rays, astride a horse, which advances with its left front leg; its tail touches its left rear leg. The emperor wears a togalike garment; the horse has saddle and bridle. The ruler represented must have lived in the period when the cult of Sol Invictus was significant in imperial propaganda, the half century before 325: the last examples of the "radiate crown" appear on gold medallions struck by Constantine and his sons in Nicomedia and Antioch in 326, after the death of Licinius (cf. Bruun, 1966, p. 42).

Constantine had continued to stress this solar cult and its imagery on his coinage throughout the period of his struggle with Licinius, long after the Edict of Milan had raised Christianity to legal equality with other religions. The statuette presumably reproduces an equestrian statue of Constantine from those years of conflict, before the fall of Licinius and the adoption of Christianity as the favored religion of the court (Noll, 1956- 1958). The statuette is probably the product of the locality in which it was found, although the rough workmanship and simplified forms also recall the bronze weights that preserved the tradition of Constantine's image for centuries at the level of craft (no. 13).

Just as the attributes shown on the weights continue to include pagan symbols long after the triumph of Christianity, the presence of solar symbolism here is no guarantee that the work was made before the official abandonment of that cult. In any event, "these bronze statuettes doubtless reflect the great esteem in which the emperor was held during his lifetime and long after his death, and, considering his popularity, it was natural for replicas of his likeness to have had broad popular appeal" (Ross [1], 1959).

Found in the nineteenth century on the site of ancient Altinum (Altirio), northeast of Padua.

bibliography: Noll, 1956-1958; Ross (1), 1959, p. 183; Noll (1), 1974, no. A9.

Weight in the form of a statuette of Constantine I. Gaul (?), 5th-6th century. Bronze. A figure of an emperor is seated, wearing a diadem surmounted by a loop for suspension as a steelyard weight (see no. 328); mantle draped over left shoulder, across lap, and covering legs. Globe in right hand with stump of broken cross; left hand rests on shield with projecting boss, christogram above right, and hatched hornlike form below, with ends terminating in goat heads.

This weight is one of a group from the late empire that portray the glories of Constantine the Great. The combination of attributes places the prototype at the crossroads of his life. He appears in the guise of Jupiter, but bears the Christian symbols of the globus cruciger and the christogram, as signs that the pagan era had been replaced by another one. The pagan aspects of the imagery are still evident on a bronze medallion struck at Rome in 326 (Bruun, 1966, no. 279), while the diadem first occurs in the imperial regalia in the mid-320s, as the radiate crown disappears (cf. no. 12).

The original model may go back a decade earlier (A. Alfoldi, 1959): the emblem on the shield is the badge of the unit of Constantine's army called the cornuti, “the horned ones" (he-goats). This was a contingent of savage Teutonic warriors recruited on the Rhine frontier for the campaign that captured Italy in 311. Reliefs on the Arch of Constantine (no. 58) show them in battle first at the siege of Verona and then at the Milvian Bridge, where they were a key to Constantine's victory. While the shield must reproduce that of this corps, it also reflects the report of Lactantius that Constantine, after his famous dream, ordered the initials of Christ painted on the shields of all his soldiers (De mortibus persecutorum 44).

The cross-topped globe appears on coins only after 400, yet this seated figure strongly resembles the statues of Tiberius and Septimius Severus depicted on either side of Constantine in one of the reliefs on his arch (no. 58) and a statue of the enthroned Constantine shown in another panel (no. 58). If, on the other hand, its model was the colossal statue (no. 11) placed in the Basilica of Maxentius/Constantine (Calkins, 1968), the date is a decade or so later than the arch. In any case, various accretions suggest that the model was modified perhaps a century later.

This is one of five weights of the same type in various museums (Ross [1], 1959, p. 180). All reproduce the same basic model, but vary in the shield design and in that only two have traces of the cross surmounting the globe. While the recorded provenance of most of these is Eastern, the ultimate model was not necessarily a statue in the Eastern Empire (cf. Deichmann, 1960); in addition to this weight, the one in Dumbarton Oaks is also assigned a Western origin (Ross, 1962, no. 70).

Said to have been found in Gaul (Calkins, 1968); collections J. Greau (sale, Paris, 9 June 1885, no. 319); Dr. Fr. Kieslinger, Vienna; Piero Tozzi, New York.

bibliography: A. Alfoldi, 1959; Ross (1), 1959; Deichmann, 1960, p. 273; Ross, 1962, I, no. 70; Calkins, 1968, no. 101; Calza, 1972, nos. 155, 243; Boston, 1976, no. 135.