The artistic beauty of Byzantium coins

He is a good man that I consider as a friend as well. That beautiful Alexius more than likely came from his personal collection.


As for the art of Christian Roman coins, it does change, for various reasons. The biggest change was Spiritualism a Greek philosophy that basically said true beauty comes from within, our shells mean nothing. This was incorporated in all three of the Abrahamic religions. So your life like images were no longer depicted.


Here is an End of the empire example of spiritualism. Christ is depicted with the least amount of lines making him very abstract.

Yes some of the earlier types were beautiful but not in a neo classical way.




In the Post Roman Empire coinage, the artist in general became a tradesman, a person who created for commission, they were told what to depict. It was not until the Renaissance, that a love for the old Greek and Roman art returned, the artist became an intellectual again.

 

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Byzantine Empire
Anatolia, Nikomedia
Justinian (r. AD 527 - 565)
AE Large Module Follis (40 nummi)
43 mm x 23.78 grams
Obverse:Helmeted and cuirassed facing bust, holding globus cruciger and shield; cross to right - DNIVSTINI ANVS PP AVC
Reverse: Large M; cross above, date across field; ANNO left field, X/II/I right field - NIK in ex.
Ref: SB 201
Note: Dated yr. 13 (AD 539/40), Large planchet. Superb. Gorgeous perfect Green patina, slight doubling of the "M"

 

Anastasius (491-518 AD)
AE Small Module 40 nummis (Follis)
Nikomedia mint
struck 498-507 AD
23.8 mm x 12.43 grams
Obverse: Diademed bust of Anastasius- DN ANASTASIVS AV
Reverse: Large M flanked by Stars, Delta Officina - NIC, cross above
ref# SB32
Note: Chocolate

 

Fascinating topics: The style & fabric of Byzantine coinage; how it varied across >1,000 years; and historical, cultural, and ideological reasons for the changes.

Below are a few of my favorite AE Folles from Anastasius through Heraclius (i.e., circa 498-620). The early ones retained the side-profile bust from Roman Imperial period. But in his Year 12 (538/9), Justinian revised the bronze coinage, borrowing the front-facing bust from the Gold Solidus (and greatly increasing the size of the Follis). From that point on, the profile bust was kept only on the smaller gold coins, through about Constantine IV (c. 668-685), I believe:





That bust style was typical of the AV Solidus denomination started by Constantine.

Many of these coins blur the boundary between Roman Imperial and Byzantine. Today, coin dealers usually define Byzantine coinage as beginning with Anastasius, but older catalogs often included the Theodosian coinage under Byzantine, and some historians (e.g., Norwich) start their Byzantine histories with Constantine (founder of Constantinople).



Notice that the Tremissis (Justinian) retains the profile bust and is almost indistinguishable in style/design from those of Theodosius (and esp. Theodosius II) well over a century earlier.

On the Solidus, the pagan holdover Victory was replaced by a (male) angel in the Justinianic Dynasty, but survived much longer on the Semissis and Tremissis. Justin II's Constantinopolis seated was the last Solidus personification (another pagan holdover).



The coin above is my favorite (possibly my favorite-favorite coin). Even within the minimalist, relatively 2-D style of middle Byzantine art, and despite the lack of realism, the image has always struck me as powerful and "realistic" in the feeling it conveys.

I've gone on and on before about this coin many times, and how lucky I felt that one day it popped off the cover of ERIC II and into my collection:



Byzantine coinage stretches over such a long period that even a collection with many coins have large empty patches. This Nikephorus with Stauracius Follis is one of my only coins from the 8th through 11th centuries (albeit a nice, published representative, Sear Byz 1612 "plate coin"):





Over four hundred years later (1222-1254), similar imagery on this John Ducas-Vatatzes Tetarteron (from the Goodacre collection, published in his Handbook & articles in the 1930s, also prob. some much older articles/books by Sabatier & de Saulcy, ill. by Dardel):


Then, of course, there is the distinctively confusing artwork on late Byzantine & Palaeologan coinage.

A typical bronze Andronicus II & Michael IX AE Trachy, ex Bendall Collection:


And some late gold (heavily clipped) & electrum...


Ran out of attachments, but the development of Silver in parallel is really fun too (though I don't have any of the really late ones).

 

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I don’t collect numismatic coins because of the coin’s realistic or “cartoonish” portrait, but rather because it belonged to the stunning empire centered in Constantinople.

Why Byzantine Empire? Its economical revivals, outstanding military achievements spanning over several centuries, cultural contribution and its status as the wealthiest empire and keyrole in shaping the western civilization is the reason why I mainly collect Byzantine coins.

In 395 when the Roman Empire was administratively divided in two, the western part with Rome declined and collapsed rapidly, while the eastern (Byzantine) one with Constantinople not just survived, but also expanded dramatically in 500s. Also, during that period emperor Anastasius introduced the monetary reform with “M” as 40 nummi. Later when the Italian Peninsula was partly lost to Lombards, the Byzantines managed to expand its border eastward. Then internal turmoil caused the Persians to conquer Levant and Egypt during the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602–628, where byzantines successfully drove out the Persians at the end in 628:



Also, many often forget that Roman world anno 400-700 was not what it was once: (1) Germanian tribes became stronger as they learned Roman military tactic, (2) Migration Period found place where especially the Huns were the most difficult, (3) Persians went from the weaker Parthian to the stronger Sassanid, (4) Out of nothing the Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula united under a new monotheistic religion. The Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628 exhausted both empires and made it easy for the Muslims to expand and take the entire Middle East. The Byzantine Empire shrunk dramatically and the Caliphate attempted unsuccessfully to shut down Byzantine Empire in the late 600s and early 700s. It was during that time that the Theme-system was introduced which enabled them to have a stabile army crucial to its survival. Also during that period a new monetary reform was passed down where Miliearesion (silver coins) were introduced. Later from the late 900s the empire again expanded military and culturally (Macedonian Renaissance):




Then in 1071 at the Battle of Manzikert a defeat to the Seljuq-Turks and later internal turmoil caused the Empire to lost almost all of its Anatolian area (plus some land in Balkan). But later during the Comnenian Dynasty the rich and densely coastal area was reconquered. Also during that period a military reform alongside a monetary reform were also initiated where the newly “cup”-coins were introduced:



What caused the empire to cease was not really the Turks, as they were defeated and handled as mentioned ealier above. But a bizarre scenario during the Fourth Crusade involving a deposed Byzantine emperor caused the crusades to take control of Constantinople and sacked it so heavily that its glory was never restored later when the Byzantine successor state (Nicean Empire) retook the city back. Eventually a civil war made it easy for the Turks to advance, and eventually Fall of Constantinople occurred in 1453, and had it not fallen then it would have fallen sooner or later:




Most other states/empires last perhaps for 50 years or 200 years, but that Byzantine one lasted over 1000 year! This I call a sublime military and monetary survival alongside an effective state.

Equally sublimes are the empire’s cultural contribution. Hagia Sofia stands as a monumental architectural splendor that employed Archimedes’ geometry that testifies Byzantium’s greatness. Also, John Philoponus, a philosopher from Alexandria in 500’s, already found out that Aristotlian physics was wrong and that heavy objects don’t fall faster than a light one. Fascinating is also that Byzantines used Greek Fire on their dromon ships. Byzantine law (Corpus Juris Civilis) is also the foundation of of western jurisprudence. And if you love to read Hesiod or Iliad and odyssey, then Byzantine scribers or monk made it possible to read it since they preserved classical Greek works by reading and copying them.

Just as USA or Germany today are the most advanced states in the Western Civilisation, Byzantine Empire had that role for several centuries, where everybody knew that state was the leading civilization of the European world. In many ways Byzantine Empire is practically Roman Empire, but where gladiator-fight was banned and replaced with acrobatic show, and where pederasty was frowned upon.

No wonder Pericles, Alexander the Great or king Ptolemy I Soter would have been jealous of Constantinople’s magnificent size, wealth and longevity as it would have dwarfed both Athens, Pella and Alexandria combined.

If interested in the topic, then Warren Treadgold’s “A History of the Byzantine State and Society” and Judith Herrin’s “Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire” could be worth of reading.


With regard to the numismatic, Byzantine coins do actually look “cartoonish” and not realistic in comparison to earlier centuries under Trajan or Aurelian. I have also noticed it on the byzantine mosaics as well. For whatever reason the Byzantines did not appreciate realistic art and resorted to a simple and stylized art. Just like cubism in the early 1900’s that rejected realism. These five coins beneath are probably the “most common” Byzantine coins one can find at retail or in auctions for between 15-40 Euro:



And they certanly don’t look realistic at all, so if realistic portrait is important for you, then avoid Byzantine coinage at all. But in case you value the Byzantine contribution to the western civilization, then here you go.

I don’t collect Roman pre-Arcadian coins because (almost) nothing really happened in continental Europe in term of societal and technological development. The foundation of national states of England, France, Germany and Italy with deep-plough and the arise of universities were laid in Middle Ages, and only the advanced state of Byzantium had copper coinage in circulation from the beginning. I wanted to collect Frankish/Carolingian coins, but it is difficult to get a coin of Charlemagne and thus I gave up. Perhaps if all this happened from 100s, then I would have invested in the earlier Roman coins.

 

Same here. I've considered making a post about it, but I just don't know enough about Byzantium to confidently do so. I think part of it has to do with some portraits facing the viewer head-on, which is a bit more difficult to do than a traditional side profile like on classical Roman coinage. The lines seem to be doing all the work on the portraits, it's either a flat surface or there's a line. This is opposed to classical Roman coinage, where there is a variance in the height of the devices (not sure if there's a numismatic term for that. This isn't true for every coin as I look at some examples and some coins definitely retain that classical Roman look, but by and large I would consider Byzantine coins to be less appealing to the eye than a classical Roman coin.