Coin (AE3) of Constantine I 324 - 330

Curator: This is a coin, an AE3 of Constantine I, residing here at the Harvard Art Museums. Looking at it, I immediately sense a powerful weight of history and empire pressing down. Editor: The coin, a humble object, speaks volumes about labor and power. Look at the wear; imagine the hands it passed through, the markets where it circulated. Its materiality tells a social story. Curator: Indeed, it's a palimpsest of meaning. The portrait of Constantine, even worn, projects authority, a visual echo of Roman power that permeated daily life. Editor: Consider the bronze itself, the mines, the workshops. This wasn't simply stamped out; the metal was sourced, smelted, processed—labor shaped by imperial demands. Curator: And the imagery! The symbols of Roman power and dominion, circulated widely, reinforced a sense of cultural cohesion and the Emperor’s omnipresence. Editor: I agree, but I keep returning to the coin’s physical existence: the feel of the metal, the signs of usage, grounding that imperial symbolism in lived experience. Curator: Seeing the symbolic charge infused within a simple coin, a medium of exchange, I'm struck by how potent symbols can be. Editor: The material reality of the coin is a reminder of the social and economic underpinnings of such symbolism, the processes that gave it tangible form.