Peter Kennett's video: Roman Hunter

A short video of one of my hunting trips in Roman land, where I found a Roman coin from emperor Constantius I - the father of Constantine the Great. The coin dates between 305 and 306 AD. The coin lists as follows: Constantius I AE quarter follis. 305-306 AD. Obverse: IMP C CONSTANTIVS PF AVG, laureate head right Reverse: GENIO POP-VLI ROMANI, Genius standing left, modius on head, naked except for chlamys over left shoulder, holding patera and cornucopia. Mintmark: SIS (Siscia, now Sisak Croatia) Size: 16x18mm. Weight: 1.4 g The full obverse legend “IMP C CONSTANTIVS PF AVG “ translates to “Imperator (commander) C (caesar, prince) Constantius Pius (pious, dutiful, blessed) Felix (happy) Augustus” The reverse legend “GENIO POPVLI ROMANI” translates to “Genius (guardian spirit) of the Roman People”. The reverse art shows the deity “Genius” with a modius on his head, holding a cornucopia in his left arm, and in the act of making a libation from a patera in his right hand. Let’s break that down. In ancient Rome, the genius (plural in Latin genii) was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person or family (gens). The noun is related to the Latin verb genui, genitus, "to bring into being, create, produce". Because the achievements of exceptional individuals seemed to indicate the presence of a particularly powerful spirit, by the time of Augustus the word began to acquire its secondary meaning of "inspiration, talent". The term “genius” today acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: genius, as above, and ingenium, a related noun referring to our innate dispositions and talents. The Islamic word “Jinn” comes from this old Latin word, and we know it today as genie. This is closer to what we see on the coin – a genie who’s spirit guides mankind (or in this case, Constantius) to be a good producer good fortune for the Roman empire. The left hand holds a cornucopia, or horn of plenty. This is a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers or nuts. Probably every child has colored one at some point, usually around autumn, but I suspect most never knew it was much older than the Pilgrims! The right hand is pouring a libation, or drink offering to the Gods. The libation is poured from a patera, a round shallow dish used by the Romans, (who adopted it from the Etruscans,) at their religious ceremonies, either in making libations of wine to the gods, or in receiving the blood of sacrificial victims. A small modius sits atop the head of Genius. The modius is a type of flat-topped cylindrical headdress or crown found in ancient Egyptian art and art of the Greco-Roman world. The name was given by modern scholars based on its resemblance to the basket used as a Roman unit of dry measure which was also called a modius (a bushel measure-- of wheat for instance, or any dry or solid commodity). On Roman coins we see the modius represented with corn-ears, and sometimes a poppy hanging or rising from it-- and having reference to distributions of wheat to the people.