Not the greatest photos (sorry about that, I'm not the best photographer), but this was the first time in a LONNNG time I've seen anyone at a show offering ancients. Byzantine follis of Constantine the Great, Cyzicus mint.
I like coins of Constantine. Incidentally this would be classified as late Roman, not Byzantine. Do you have many ancient coins?
No, I don't. Basically my first one. I'd like to find one of Justinian the Great (whom I have a great deal of respect for) sometime. But at the show I regularly attend, there are no dealers in ancients, except for today...
Yes. It's late Roman. Justinian I, on the other hand, would be Byzantine. Congrats, @manny9655. Constantine the Great is a very historical ruler, of course. Hope you get your Justinian the Great. (Might be fun to do a small themed collection of rulers who were known as "_ The Great".) Here's my Justinian. It is the only Byzantine coin I presently own.
The Byzantines were my ancestors. I know plenty about Justinian, including the fact that he was a hymnographer and that one of his hymns is still sung today. He codified Roman law, expanded the Empire, was a staunch Chalcedonian Christian (unlike his wife, who sympathized with the Monophysites). @lordmarcovan Where do numismatists draw the line between Roman and Byzantine? Most Byzantine histories begin with Constantine. A. A. Vasiliev's definitive "History of the Byzantine Empire" begins with Constantine.
It’s a fair question. I personally draw the line at the fall of the Western Roman empire in 476 AD, as I think many folks do. But that may not be universal. And you bring up a good point about how Constantine the Great is important (indeed, central) to Byzantine history. I guess the line is blurred somewhat since the transition from “Roman” to “Byzantine” was more of a long evolution over centuries rather than a single event. But since a lot of us numismatists want that tidy, convenient timeline point, I think it’s 476 AD for a lot of folks. (Before that, Roman. After that, Byzantine. In an admittedly simplistic way of thinking.) That’s probably not unanimous, though. And you could certainly make a strong point for the inclusion of Constantine I in a Byzantine themed collection. (After all, look how many subsequent Byzantine emperors were named after him.)
Here’s another slippery matter of numismatic nomenclature. Generally speaking, most people consider coins struck during the first five centuries AD to be “ancient”, while coins struck later than that (up until the 1500s or 1600s or so) are usually considered to be “medieval”. But Byzantine coins are all generally considered to be “ancient”, despite the fact that they were struck after 476 AD and on up until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD, which is practically the Renaissance period and almost at the threshold of the “early modern” era! So my 7th century English sceatta could arguably be called “early medieval”, while a Byzantine coin struck centuries after that might still be called “ancient”! The point is, sometimes the often-vague terminology gets a bit muddled. And confusing.
