Helena (Augusta, 324-30), Solidus, Ticinum, c. 324-5, FL HELENA AVGVSTA, diademed and mantled bust right, wearing double-strand pearl necklace, rev. SECVRITAS REIPVBLICE SMT, Empress as Securitas standing left, lowering branch and lifting robe, 4.45g/5h (RIC 183; C 11). Small dent on cheek, otherwise good very fine and extremely rare £20,000-25,000

Provenance:
Found in Hampshire 2008.

Illustrated on the front cover. On 8 November 324 Constantine celebrated his victory at Chrysopolis by conferring the rank of Augusta upon his mother Helena and his wife Fausta. The reverse type SECVRITAS REIPVBLICE (sic) is typical of the time that the personifications of ideas be identified with an imperial personage. The historian Procopius informs us that Flavia Julia Helena was of humble origin and a native of Drepanum in Bithynia. She was first consort of Constantius I and nobilissima femina before 324, and is considered a saint by the Orthodox church due to her piety, discovery of the True Cross and building the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. A later legend mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon (c. 1080-1160) and made popular by Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100-55), claimed that Helena was a daughter of the British Old King Cole of Camulodunum (Colchester), who allied with Constantius to avoid more war between Romans and Britons and Rome. There is no other surviving evidence to support this legend, which may be due to confusion with St. Elen, daughter of a Welsh chieftain from Caernarfon and later wife of Magnus Maximus