Following the death of Constantine, memorial coins were struck. Unlike those coins of former emperors which proclaimed the dead emperors to be god, these showed Constantine ascending to be with God. The Emperor is shown in a chariot drawn by four horses and reaching up to the hand of God. (Perhaps the artists were thinking of the ascent of Elijah.) This is the first instance of symbolic representation of God himself, whose hand was to appear again in Roman and later series of coins, either by itself or crowning the Emperor.
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