Roman Bronze - Licinius II ( 317 tto 324 ) - NGC VF

Before Licinius II rose to the rank of Caesar -- his father came into power by being the second-hand to Emperor Galerius & at one point becoming his political envoy while Galerius was on an expedition into Persia. His father was then elevated to the station of ‘Augustus in the West’ and became Caesar to half the Roman empire after his death in 311.

Licinius I would then go on to marry the half-sister of Constantine, having a son named Licinius II (who would himself rise to the rank of Caesar later in 317). Three years after his birth in 314 a rift erupted between the Licinius family and Constantine that would explode into a violent civil war with periodic truces for the next decade.

In 324 Licinius I declared the truce between them broken again when Constantine pursued pillaging barbarians out of his lands and chased them into territory belonging to the family of Licinius. After this declaration, Constantine decided he had enough of this tit-for-tat and moved to reunite the Roman Empire under his rule by force.

After a swift military victory and initially sparing their lives, Constantine later discovered Licinius I and Licinius II trying to raise another army among the Goths to overthrow him. In response to this he had them both executed & their names removed from official Roman transcripts. Constantine would go on to become known as ‘Constantine the Great’ and successfully reunited the Eastern and Western Roman Empires.