I was feeling extravagant today so I picked up this little coin that I've had my eye on for a while. It's a "tremissis" or 1/3 of a "solidus",the standard gold coin of the time.It was minted at Constantinople. The strike is fairly good and well centered which can often be a problem with Byzantine gold coins. It is listed on Wildwinds as sb0008 (Sear Byzantine #8) http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/bigpic.cgi?img=coins/./sb/sb0008.jpg&ruler=./sb/i.html I'm guessing that he was the first Byzantine emperor to strike gold coins since he is the first listed in David Sear's book.
WOW, now THAT is a tough coin, 5th century, I see Here is my only example. Nowhere as beautiful as yours...:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
Mike,my boss & I sold a Tremissis of the Emperor Justinian I late last week.It had 2 figures on the reverse.The coin itself was in unusually nice order. Aidan.
sweet coin Mikjoo, I have nothing comparable...maybe soon, I have been shopping Roman gold....most that are in my price range are later Roman and Byzantine...early roman gold coin prices are out there.
Nice coin Mik :high5: I don't delve into ancients much, but if I remember correctly Constantine introduced the solidus and he was before Anastasius I.
Thanks Doug, Very true but from what I've read,most experts have Anastasius as the first true Byzantine Emperor. There is a lot of dispute about this but David Sear,Wayne Sayles,Rudnik Numismatics and Wildwinds all begin with him. http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/i.html http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/romaion/romaion.html Wikipedia has a pretty good article that discusses this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire I believe it had something to do with the fact that Constantinople acheived complete supremacy over the empire around this time..I'm not sure though.
After doing a bit more research,I think I've stumbled upon the definative answer as to why the coinage of Anastasius might be considered the first truly Byzantine ones. "After Zeno died without designating a successor, the Empress Ariadne was called upon to select a new emperor. Her choice was an obscure but successful finance civil servant, Anastasius. She made a wise choice. Anastasius ruled successfully for 27 years. His financial expertise resulted in the accumulation of 320,000 pounds of gold! He also restructured the currency system, creating the nummus unit of account and the follis of 40 nummi. Because of the dramatic changes, Anastasius' reform is often seen by numismatists as the end of Roman coinage and the beginning of Byzantine coinage. The people of the empire didn't see it that way and continued to call themselves Romans until the fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453."
