 Because Constantine was still largely untried and had a hint of illegitimacy about him , he relied on his father 's reputation in his early propaganda : the earliest panegyrics to Constantine give as much coverage to his father 's deeds as to those of Constantine himself . Constantine 's military skill and building projects soon gave the panegyrist the opportunity to comment favorably on the similarities between father and son , and Eusebius remarked that Constantine was a " renewal , as it were , in his own person , of his father 's life and reign " . Constantinian coinage , sculpture and oratory also shows a new tendency for disdain towards the " barbarians " beyond the frontiers . After Constantine 's victory over the Alemanni , he minted a coin issue depicting weeping and begging Alemannic tribesmen — " The Alemanni conquered " — beneath the phrase " Romans ' rejoicing " . There was little sympathy for these enemies . As his panegyrist declared : " It is a stupid clemency that spares the conquered foe . " 
