Featured Life in the Byzantine empire

Great write up @Only a Poor Old Man ! Great coins as well!
Sadly, I haven't added any more Byzantines to my collection lately. Things have gone nuts in the coin market, along with every other market it seems, and the coins I would probably be able to afford are now out of my price range.

I am going to work on re-shooting some of them and hopefully getting better pictures.
I love Byzantines!

 

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Anastasius is the first emperor styled as Byzantine. His radical reform of the copper coinage is a clear break from the coins of the previous emperors, so from a numismatic standpoint he is a logical choice. His gold coinage did not significantly depart from those of his predecessors, though. Here are some examples, all from the Constantinople mint. The angel on the reverse shows a bit of variety, holding a long cross, or one of two varieties of Chi-rho.




It has been suggested that the long cross gave way to the Chi-rho to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jesus’ birth. The suggestion may be fanciful (or not. Who knows?) But it does help fix the time of Anastasius’ reign in the memory.

 

To me, the most interesting part of Byzantine coinage is the great variety offered under the term. The Byzantine era lasted nearly a thousand years. There are large, small, gold, copper - something for everyone.

 

I am a book lover and somehow don't have that one, even though I wrote web pages on Byzantine copper:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/Byz/

A little over a week ago I got this in the mail:

19-15 mm. 2.68 grams.
Heraclius, 610-641, dated year 8 (617/8)
Sear 818.
These are stuck on flans cut from larger flans and some are almost triangular. This one is better than the Sear plate coin, which brings up the issue of whether you'd rather have a plate coin from a major reference work or a somewhat better example with no pedigree?

 

Wonderful write-up, and ambitious, given the breadth and scope of the subject. It is a good idea to do this in parts, after all, when you're working on a history of Byzantine society, you certainly don't want to lose your Phocas!

Here's a Byzantine bronze medallion that came by way of Roma Numismatics

Byzantine Empire, circa 7-12th century AD
Æ Medallion
OA (ligate) ΒΑ, nimbate and bearded bust of St. Basil the Great of Caesarea(?) facing, holding Gospels / Drill holes in form of cross and border.
37.07g, 47mm.
Brown patina with earthen deposits.
Rim notched on obverse, creating a semi-seriated appearance.
Holed at 12 o’clock, reverse.
An unusual large medallion.
Lot 1644, Roma E-Sale 81
From a private UK collection.

 

Good question. This coin is different but similar in being struck on a quartered pie shape flan. I bought it in 2016 from a listing stating it was the Sear plate coin but I did not bid more for that feature. I wanted an example struck on a quarteed coin. Apparently no one else was terribly impressed with the Sear reference or I would not have won it.

Justinian II half follis struck on a quarter of a Michael IV follis (thus doubling its value). S1262 (this coin)


This one sold for more in 2007 but we expect big dealer coins to sell for more. Is it enough better or does a CNG sale listing outrank a Sear plate coin?
https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=111970

 

I would love to take such a course had I the opportunity to do so. I studied the Classics at Catholic University in Washington DC. Great school for that sort of thing and near the Dumbarton Byzantine center. As a department head, when examining new texts for our school, I always checked the section (if they had one ) on the Byzantine Empire. If it was a good one I considered purchasing that text. If it had no such section, I would go no further looking at it or considering it. During that time when I was teaching I made a visit to modern Turkey to view the sites. The most impressive to me were the walls, what was remaining, of those that protected the capital for a thousand years, from every two bit, wanna be, conqueror of the empire. But as for signing up for a course at a good school like Berkeley ( one of my daughters, got her PhD. from Berkeley, great campus) I am afraid from where I live now and my stage of life, I think today's students would mistake me for Abelard. But I never had the opportunity that you were so fortunate to have had. By the way, can you tell me when you took that course?

 

Wow, 2000 pages for a period of 200 years? Talk about a passionate thesis! Sounds very interesting, but I have a feeling it won't be an easy read (something to pick up with a cup of tea), probably more like studying for an exam . As to be expected, it is not exactly cheap either. Is it well illustrated? And, I don't mean plates, one little pet hate I have about my existing Byzantine coin books is that I dislike reading about a coin on page x and then having to look it up at page xxxx to have a closer look.

For me, the better example the better! Provenance is a nice addition, but especially with Byzantines a nice condition is something very desirable.

I think you meant this question for @ancient coin hunter

I really really love the pentanummion... The more I look at it the more I like it... But.... It is just a bit too small! I like to put my coins in quickslabs and the smallest available diameter for the foam-cuts is 14 millimetres. This is going to trigger my OCD... The only coin that I have a similar problem with is my little gorgon.

 

The History of Byzantium with Dr. Treadgold was in 1988 I think. I graduated in 1990.

 

Yep! It has tons of charts, graphs, and plates! The book is dry as one would expect but its so interesting I haven't had much of an issue reading it! As for price, I think it is almost $400...luckily I was able to borrow a copy to read. It may exist in PDF form online too as some authors publish their work separately online for free although I haven't checked for this particular book

 

The winner of the book I offered "Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy C. 300-1450", by Michael Hendy, if they want it and it is shipped within the USA, is @dougsmit.
PM me your shipping information please.

 

To narrow the subject I think you should just look at the one place that stayed constantly byzantine until the end.

Constantine the Great created the city he called Nova Roma ( New Rome) It was a city that Constantine built very quickly, it was said it took 6 years, many of the original city sculptures were taken from Rome Italy, and suddenly reappeared in Nova Roma or as the population called it Constantinople. In its history other cultures gave it other names as Great City of the Romans, Throne of the Romans, City of the Emperor and just simple The City. Officially it has the name (since the 1920s) as Constantinople ( In to the City.)

The city itself was perfectly picked location, easily defendable and a gateway of of money of ships that wished to pass its boarders. Basically the perfect location for the Roman Empires most profitable area in its outer boarders. It was said you can hear 2 dozen languages being spoken in the city.

As for the city itself, it was the New York of its time, bustling with life , activities, trade, the gateway from the east and west. The population during its Byzantine life was said to have reached 1,000,000 people during the rule of Justinian, the numbers are not official, no census is known, during the rule of Manuel it had dropped to 400,000 but that was a rise from the some of the previous centuries.
The city fell for the first time during a crusade, not well protected because the crusaders were thought to be allies it was conquered and stripped of all of its riches.

It was recaptured 50 years later but it never had the same grandeur of its past, it fell to the Turks in 1453, a major conquest for a new Empire. The city now has the largest in Europe with over 15,000,000 people.

I am hoping to visit is again this year, it will be a 10 day trip with my wife who has never seen it.
To this day it is an amazing place, here are some pics from a 2013 trip.





Hope this is still considered in the context of the original thread. This still still proves itself to be as cosmopolitan as it did in its earlier history as Nova Roma.

 

It certainly is, and I encourage more of you to add more interesting Byzantine trivia. I was going to touch upon Constantinople at some point, but not sure when. I think she deserves a chapter of her own. Not many people realise how magnificent she was. 'one could not believe there was so rich a city in all the world' said the crusader Villehardouin in 'De la Conquête de Constantinople'. But it was not only about Constantinople. Cities like Thessalonika, Antioch, Alexandria, were more advanced and cosmopolitan than any of their western contemporaries.

Here is a coin minted there. Let's also fill this thread with beautiful Byzantines, including art, hagiography, and anything else you can think of.

 

This will be familiar to lots of people, but it's too good to leave out. The Christ Pantocrator mosaic in the Hagia Sophia, dated (from the caption in Wiki Commons) as late as c. 1280. I find it compelling for the combination of neo-Gothic naturalism, suspended in a wider, unmistakably Byzantine ethos. Not to mention a medium which was relatively seldom used in the contemporary West. To a resonant point that @Only a Poor Old Man made somewhere else, it's as if the artist was saying --a la Picasso-- 'See? We can do this any time we want!' (...If it was earlier in this thread, Sorry, @Only a Poor Old Man, I didn't check!)

 

PM sent, thanks

 

Cool write up @Only a Poor Old Man ! I've always has a bit of a soft sport for the Byzantine stuff. Here is a recent purchase of mine, I've had Zoe on my list for years.



Constantine VII Porpyrogentus AD 913-959, AE Follis. (regency issue under Zoe AD 914-919)
O: +COhSTANT'CE ZOH b', Constantine left wearing loros and his mother Zoe right wearing chlamys, holding between them a long cross.
R: legend in five lines: +COhS / TAhTINO / CE ZOE bA / SILIS RO / mEON
Constantinople Mint.
25 mm, 6.6 g

 

Coinage and Money in Medieval Greece 1200-1430 (2 vols.) | Brill

I did not know it was out, published late last year. Thank you

I just bought a copy of the two volumes. I expect it to be dry as @The Trachy Enjoyer stated but what is dry now is needed info later. look around for coupons, I always do. With coin books what is available now becomes a difficult search later.

 

I shipped it out today.