I like large bronze Byzantine coins, but do not have books on them. I wanted to show a friend an anonymous follis, but had trouble translating the back: +IҺSЧS-XRISTЧS-ЬASILЄ-ЬASILЄ I think the translation is: Jesus Christ, King of Kings. I do not get that translation from google translate. Are the words in Latin, Greek or something else? None of those worked for me. I have a few, and have given a bunch of them for Christmas or other presents. I bought these at a recent Houston coin show. (The Houston Winter Coin Show is Feb 16 & 17 if anyone is interested.) I found this pic of Basil II on acsearch. A neat overstrike from JA's last auction:
You’re right, the phrase reads, “Jesus Christ, King of Kings,” but working out the grammar of the last two words is a bit problematic. Hopefully some better linguists than I will weigh in. But here’s my stab at it. The linguistic formula “X of Y” (e.g., “Holy of Holies”; “King of Kings”) is sometimes called the “Hebrew Superlative” since it is used in the Bible. It’s perhaps more commonly called the “Superlative Genitive,” because the second word of such a linguistic formula will be in the genitive case. (In inflected languages such as Latin and Greek, grammatical information is not conveyed so much by word order as by word forms, such as suffixes.) I might attempt to expand the legend as “IHSUS CHRISTUS, BASILEUS BASILEORUM,” with basileorum being my guess as to what basileus would be in the genitive plural–“of kings.” The problem with basileus, as Valiant Knight has pointed out, is that it is a Greek word and thus uncommon in Latin, with rex being the preferred term for king. I have, however, found an attested genitive use of basileorum in the phrase “basileorum urbe,” or the “City of the Kings.” So that’s my guess as to the grammar here: IHSUS CHRISTUS, BASILEUS BASILEORUM; “JESUS CHRIST, KING [OF] KINGS.” Now I will wait for a specialist to reply and embarrass me.
Good question @rrdenarius - I'll leave it to the Medieval Greek scholars on Mt. Athos to figure this one out. I have always loosely translated it as Jesus Christ King of Kings but the identical ending of BASILE makes it a bit confusing. Anyway, here's my anonymous folle, attributed to Romanus II I believe.
Class A3 (or light A2: 12.22g), attributed to Basil II & Constantine VIII (1023-1028) Class B, attributed to Romanus III (1028-1034), possibly as late as Michael IV (up to 1041). Class D, attributed to Constantine IX (1042-55). These seem often to have impressively crappy letter B's.
Basile is king in Greek. I guess Basileus is the plural form (kings). Still we need to understand the possessive or comparative or superlative forms in ancient Greek grammar. Don't count in me for this. LOL
I had a college professor who had absolutely nothing nice to saw about the grammar in New Testament period Greek. From there, it went downhill. Languages change. Rule that seemed important when I was a kid are ignored today and that is only half a century (rounded off liberally). 5th BC century Greek was a beautiful language. What would Shakespeare have to say about today?
Languages are in a constant stat of evolution. To say that one period is the pure form is at worst hubris and at least inaccurate. The form of the letters on Byzantine coins as they change from Latin to Greek are wonderful to watch. I also collect ancient semitic coins and the changes there are even more noticeable. Sometimes something looks punic, sometimes paleo-hebrew sometimes Phoenician and quite often the letters are not all of one narrowly defined chronological period. Regional differences also make an enormous difference. The various romance languages of Europe also change. Even English changed, not all that long ago when, for instance, Lewis and Clark wrote in their journal with unusual spellings because the spellings were not universally agreed on and were in fact changing.
There were some pretty helpful advice & links on Byzantine anonymous stuff last year in this thread: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/byzantine-christ-follis-attribution-help.298697/ Hope that helps.
βασιλεὺς (basileus) is the nominative singular. The genitive plural is βασιλέων (basilewn). The phrase appears in the New Testament in two forms: With the genitive portion as a substantive participle formed of the cognate verb, βασιλεὺω (basileuw) "I rule as king": ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν βασιλευόντων (the king of those who rule as kings) in 1 Timothy 6:15 With the genitive portion as a plural noun: βασιλεὺς βασιλέων (king of kings) in Rev 17:14 and Rev 19:16.
I tend to steer very clear away from any discussion relating to religion or politics , but in this case I will point out that 'Christ' is not a name, but a word. It means 'anointed', and the closest meaning in Hebrew is 'messiah'. There are endless religious implications regarding the latter word (and the former as well considering modern interpretations). I might suggest a more appropriate translation of the legend might read "Jesus, anointed, King of Kings". Obviously this more literal translation has its own issues and interpretations towards meaning and intent.
Thanks Ken. I posted the question here after looking at examples on acsearch. I thought I had seen the words: "Jesus Christ, King of King" online or in print, but I did not find any translations of the reverse. I think you are not the only person who avoids religion in coin talks. I did reread about Basil II and he did some pretty ugly things to the Bulgarian army he defeated.
