Constantine and the city of Trier

On the bottom of the reverse side we see some more letters which do not seem to be part of the inscription. These letters are written in the exergue, the horizontal text underneath the main image, and they represent the location where this coin was minted. In this case these letters read as PTRE, which is an abbreviation for the minting location and indicate that this coin was minted in Trier, or as it was called in that period, Augusta Treverorum.Roman Imperial Coinage, VII.1, Treviri 458

The city of Trier was originally founded as a Roman settlement under the name of Augusta Treverorum. The name suggests that it was named after the Celtic tribe of Treviri that used to live in the region. In the early stages the city became the seat of the imperial procurator and later governor of the province Belgica. Under emperor Claudius (41-54) it gained the Roman colonial status, and under the Tetrarchy (late third and early fourth century) the prefecture of Gaul was based here.Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th edition, 2012) 206 The city of Trier was very much connected with the person of Constantine, who built his famous basilica here between 300 and 310. The building was to become the center of law and justice in the Roman empire under Constantine. Trier would become the seat of the emperor, and in a panegyric from 310 it was called the sedes iustitiae, or ‘seat of Justice’. In later centuries the basilica became an important religious building in the Christian world, but under Constantine the only religious ‘rituals’ that took place were new laws issued by Constantine, as his word was seen as sacred.Rüfner, T., “Seat of Justice and Second Cathedral of the Rhineland. The Basilica of Constantine as a Point of Encounter of Law and Religion in Trier.” Zeitschrift Der Savigny-Stiftung Für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonistische Abteilung 105:1 (2019) 153–58, 153-154