NUMISMATIC NOTES AND MONOGRAPHS

is devoted to essays and treatises on subjects relating to coins, paper money, medals and decorations.

PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

ALFRED R. BELLINGER, Chairman

THEODORE V. BUTTREY, JR.

JOHN V. A. FINE

THOMAS O.MABBOTT

EDITORIAL STAFF

SAWYER MeA. MOSSER, Editor

HOWARD L. ADELsoN, Associate Editor

The Numismatic Iconography

of Justinian II (685-695, 705-711 A.D.)

By JAMES D. BRECKENRIDGE

THE A~lERICAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

NEW YORK

1959

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY

THE AMERICAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

PRINTED IN GERMANY

AT J.J. AUGUSTIN· GLCCKSTADT

Not without virtues was the prince.

Who is?

- J. H. Leigh Hunt

CONTENTS

FOREWORD ............... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . IX

INTRODUCTION ........................................ I

THE COINS OF JUSTINIAN II ............................ 18

TYPES OF THE EMPEROR ............................... 28

TYPES OF CHRIST...................................... 46

COIN LEGENDS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

JUSTINIAN II AND THE MOSLEl\-f REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE COINS OF JUSTINIAN II . . . . . . . 78

THE MEANING OF JUSTINIAN U'S NEW COIN TYPES .•..... 91

FOREWORD

Even at this late date, it sometimes seems that the value of numis­matic evidence for art-historical studies is something more often ack­nowledged than exploited; nonetheless, each year finds more thorough use being made of numismatic material by scholars in that field, while numismatists themselves are more apt than formerly to see that the findings of the art historians can be of use to them in their own studies. The writer knows of no other single problem, however, in which the two disciplines are more closely interrelated, and in which the solution involves such a degree of interpretation of material from each field in terms of the other, than the one under examination here. For accepting for pUblication in this series a study of this sort, which sometimes ranges far afield from the normal concerns of purely numismatic research, the writer is deeply appreciative of the con­sideration given by the Publication Committee of the American Numismatic Society.

The problem which forms the focal point of the present study was first set forth in relevant terms over two decades ago by Professor Andre Grabar of the College de France; the writer owes a great debt to Professor Grabar for guidance through his writings, his teaching, and his counsel during the course of the preparation of this study. Some of its conclusions were presented in a preliminary way in Pro­fessor Grabar's seminar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in 195I, while a more final but still more summary account was given at the Symposium on the Byzantine Seventh Century held at Dumbarton Oaks in 1957.

This study was prepared originally in the form of a doctoral dis­sertation, under the direction first of Professor A. M. Friend, Jr., and then of Professor Kurt \Veitzmann, to whose generous help and assistance its completion is largely owed. Professor Ernst Kitzinger has taken a kind interest in the findings, with the result that the pre­sent paper is undoubtedly far sounder than it would otherwise have been; Professors Paul A. Underwood and Glanville Downey have given of their knowledge and critical advice, as have Messrs. Cyril

ix

x Foreword

A .. M~ngo, ~asil Laourdas and Ihor Sevcenko in various ways. In bnn~ng thIS manuscript into fonn for publication, the advice, sug­gestIOns and corrections of Professor Alfred R. Bellinger have been in. valuable.

N~mismatic .e:~erts and curators have been most helpful in ex­tending the facilItIes of their institutions and making available their funds of knowledge; the writer must acknowledge particular indebted­ness t~ Dr. George.c. Miles and Mrs. A. A. Boyce, and to ~I. Jean ~afaur:e of the Cabmet des Medailles, BibliothCque Nationale. Study m ~~~IS would have been far more arduous without the cherished facIlitIes of the Institut Byzantin and the skilled assistance of its staff, under M. Boris Ermolov.

. Such specific acknow~edgements can only partially indicate the full mdebtedness of the wnter to the many friends and scholars, all of whom have had a part in the pursuit of this problem' an attempt is made to recogrnz' e specific c t'b t' I :. on n u IOns at re evant pomts In the foot-notes. Any. scholarly work is a mosaic of contributions from many sources, wrItten and verbal, published and suggested, all of which go t~ make up the final synthesis; but, as in the creation of a mosaic pIcture, the respon"ibility for the final result is not with the contribu­tors of t~e individual tesserae, but "'lith the person who puts them together I~ the hope of forming a coherent whole. For the faults and errors which may exist in the text which follows, the writer must accept sole responsibility.

I~TRODUCTIOX

Justinian II was the first Byzantine emperor to place the image of Christ on his regular official coinage. 1 When he took this step, fur­thennore, he used not one but two quite different representations of the physical appearance of Christ. The precedent thus created was ignored by his successors, however, and the Christ-image disappeared again from the Byzantine coinage for a century and a half, while the Eastern Empire was torn by the Iconoclastic Controversy; then, almost immediately upon the Restoration of the Images in the middle of the ninth century, one of Justinian II's two coin types of Christ was copied almost line for line by the die-cutters of 1Iichael III, and thereafter became the prototype of one of the Christ representations which became nonnal on imperial Byzantine coins from the ninth century on.

These facts have long been well known, and the importance of

1 That is to say, the image of Christ as a coin-type of and by itself, on a numis­matic issue intended for general circulation. The figure of Christ had appeared on Byzantine coins already, however, to judge by the unique solidus of Marcian and Pulcheria in the Hunterian Collection, illustrated by George :Macdonald, Coin Types, Their Origin and Development, Glasgow, 1905, pp. 233-5 & Pi. IX, 8. This coin, which bears on the obverse an image of Marcian, in armor, three­quarters facing, has for reverse type the figures of emperor and empress standing, with Christ behind and between them, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. The reverse legend is "FELICITER KUBTIIS."

The significance of the type has been elucidated, lac. cit., along the follo\\ing lines: \Vbereas Christ on this coin assumes the place taken in Roman icono­graphy by Juno Pronuba, He specifically replaces the figure of Theodosius II as seen on a coin celebrating the marriage of Valentinian III and Eudoxia in 437 A. D. Christ appears on the later coin (dated ca. 450) because the marriage was one of form only, the bride having taken irrevocable vows of chastity at an early age; she married only to continue the imperial succession. Christ as depicted on this coin, insofar as can be determined given its worn condition, has the rounded skull, long face, beard, and cross-nimbus familiar in fifth-century Italian art of other media.

In any event, this coin, which must have been struck in very limited quan­tity, had no immediate influence on Byzantine coin-types, or on the imperial Christian iconography: Christ appears here for a specific symbolic reason, and not because of any function He performs in a more generalized way for the Christian religion, or for the Christianized imperial cult.

I

2 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

Justini~ II's innovation is generally recognized; but it has been ~ore. difficult to ascertain the meaning placed in his action at the tune It was taken. In recent years, increased attention has been given Justinian II's issues by a group of scholars whose special concern is the ~eory of icon-worship developed by the iconophiles of the eighth and ~th centuries.2 While the interest shown by these iconophiles in JustIman II's use of the Christ image is of great importance to an understanding of the fully developed image theory, much less is kno~ about the actual background, political, theological, or what­ever It may have been, of Justinian II's own actions' in other words whereas the ninth century' al t' f ' . ' . . . s ev ua Ion 0 seventh-century practice IS ~po~tant ill. understan~g eighth- and ninth-century attitudes to~ard un~ges ill general, It IS considerably more difficult to apply this same e1ghth- or ninth-cent al t' itself. ury ev ua 10n to the seventh century

This is not to say that our understanding of wh t d I . . th' a was eve opmg WI regard to attitudes and practices of religious art in the seventh century has not advanced markedly in recent years not least as a result of the above-mentioned researches 3 Until ' h . now, owever, no

2 The pioneering work on the sub' e t An I'art byzantin, Paris, 1936. Certani c f ~as ,dr~ Grabar's L'empereur d~ns other original ones by P L K °h . rabar s Ideas were developed, With der Christusikone:' Ben;d'kUt~~ hocM ill a sen:s of articles, "Zur Theologie . . ,t ~msc e 1 onatsschnjt XIX •. lbtd. XX, 1938, pp. 32-47, 168- 281-8 .' 1937, PP', 37r387, to our sub)' ect "Chn'stusbild K75~ bild' and 437-52 , and, most Important

" - alser "ibid XXI Developrng ideas he had already begun t' bli'h' G 1939, pp. 85-10j. Ladner ,note the important "0 " d 0, p~ S ill ennany, Gerhard B. clastic Controversy" Mediaet'alr;,~~n IISlgnificance of the Byzantine leono­Concept of the I~e in the G Uk z; th' 1940, pp. 127-49; and, since, "The Controversy," Dumbarton Oaks ;:e ers ~ ers and the Byzant.me Iconoclastic we have the significant pa r b.J:. ~, ~953, Pf?· 1-34· Still more recently the Age before Iconoclasn0 D:mb:::n ~~~};:per-';~iult of the Images. in d. esp. hIS remarks, p. 128 on the' rt I, 1954, pp. 83-1:>0; G,rabar's, Koch's, and La~er's con~buti:~\~s;;!:c:s the weaknesses, ~f L ",conoclasme byzantin, dossier archiolo i ue P . nt ~f all IS Grabar s somewhat antedates in c "ti' g q , ~~s~ 1957, which overlaps and 3 " ,~mposl on, parts of Kitzrnger's work.

Cf. the artIcle by Kitzrnger just cited with his "0

;r~~th ~n~:?J"" in ~ate Classical and Mediaeval Stud~esS~~~c;n~t ~l;h~ • a las ne , Y., Pnnceton, 1955, pp. 132- 1.0 and G b ' '" ey Symptomatic of gro"'ing scholarly interest in t1 ' I ra ar s L tco1Zoclasme. the Symposium on Byzantium in the Seventh ~e~: :onoclashc period was Oaks rn :May, 1957, at which parts of th . . ry, held at Dumbarton form. e present" ork were read in abridaed

o

Introduction 3

attempt has been made to study the coins of Justinian II in a thorough way from the numismatic standpoint, with a view to applying our new knowledge of their mvn and later periods, and their possible rela­tion to pre-Iconoclastic image-theory.

The pre-Iconoclastic age was a pivotal one, not only for the Byzan­tine Empire, but for all of what we know as Europe. The very scar­city of the material from which we must reconstruct a picture of the epoch serves to show us just how critical its position was. \Ve are well enough informed about the era of Justinian the Great, a period in the course of which we may perceive the beginnings of the evolution of the Roman Empire into its mediaeval form. But we are far less au courant with events in each subsequent decade. With the coming of Heraclius, and the first of a new series of battles with the resurgent Orient, a veil begins to fall over the Byzantine Empire, through which we can dimly discern men and events, but little of the institu­tions and ideas that gave them life. \Vhen, in another hundred years, the Isaurian emperors had succeeded in beating off the Moslem on­slaught, the curtain begins to lift. The stage is the same, but all else, characters, scenery, dialogue, the whole frame of reference has changed immeasurably.

Clearly all this did not happen overnight, in the eighth century. A great deal of research has been devoted to the study of these new institutions which we see in operation under the Isaurians,4 and all of it has served to illustrate how much of the modification of the struc­tUre of the Empire took place in the century before Leo III, the years between the great Persian invasion of Syria around 6I3, and the final unsuccessful :Moslem attack on Constantinople in 7I7 A. D. The new administrative system of the themes, integrating civil and military administration; the new agrarian laws, adjusting conceptions of prop-

• Cf. for example G. Ostrogorsky, "eber die venneintliche Refonntitigkeit der Isaurier," Byzantinische Ze#schrift (hereafter BZ) XXX, I929-30, pp. 394-401; G. Vernadsh.--y, "Sur les origines de la Loi agraire byzantine," By­antion II, 1926, pp. I6g-80; a good summary, with bibliography to date, is Ostrogorsh.--y's chapter in the Cambridge Economic History I, Cambridge, 19,p, pp. 57g-83. ::'tIost recently, Ostrogorsh.--y has arrived definitely at a Heraclian date for the composition of the Book of the Themes: "Sur la date de la com­position du LiHe des Themes et sur l'epoque de la constitution des premiers themes d'Asie ::'tIineure," Byzantion XXIII, I953, pp, 31-66. According to Ostrogorsky, the ":\'omos Georgikos" was probably published under Justinian II himself.

4 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

erty and ownership to the new realities of a ravaged countryside; these and many other details, large and small, of Byzantine life can ?e demonstrated, or may be hypothesized, to have had their origins rn the century which followed the advent of Heraclius.

The final stage of this transition, it is clear from our evidence, was takin?" place under the last ruler of the Heraclian Dynasty, Justinian II. HIS two reigns, interrupted and followed as they were by periods of an~rchy which prepared the way for the new strong man, Leo the Isaunan, provided despite their difficulties the last period before the !conoclasm whe.n the Byzantine government enjoyed sufficient stabil­Ity to concern Itself not only with civil administration and policy, but also with religious practices.

In the matter of the art of the period, we find a situation directly para~el to that just ~escribed with regard to its political history. The Is~~ans br~ught WIth them a new attitude toward the Christian reli~on ~nd ~ts art, an attitude which we call Iconoclasm. They left an rndelible Imprint upon the character of Byzantine art, religious and secular. Yet the very nature of the Iconoclastic movement erased a great deal of the evidence which would tell us what came before it, and consequently whence the Iconoclastic attitude itself derived.

~ust . as recent research has pushed the origins of the Isaurian ~egIslat~ve system back a century, so we can see now that Iconoclasm Itself did not .spring like a weed from untilled soil. Rather is it true that th~ c~njlIct had been preparing itself for decades in the minds of men, wIthrn an~ ~thout the boundaries of the Empire; and what happened to religiOUS art, in its theory and in its practice, in the course of the seventh century was of the gr t t . t . . '. ' ea es Impor ance In detennrnrng ~he nse of the opposite viewpoint, Iconoclasm.

The evolutIon of religious art in this period just prior to the Icono­clasm has a further interest, inasmuch as it formed the basis for the concepts ~sed by the Orthodox party against the Image-Breakers, and supplIed the ~oncrete examples necessary for the formulation of regular Ort~odox Ico?--theo~; not only that, but surviving examples, and memones, of this art eVIdently provided the point of d t f th . li" epar ure or e n~\\ re gIous art which flowered almost immediately upon the

RestoratlOn of the Images, in the ninth century. The problem posed for the art historian by thI:S . d' .

be peno Immediately fore the advent of the Isaurian D'rnasty as b

J ,may e seen from the

Introduction 5

foregoing, is that of ascertaining in the first place what monuments survive from that period, and secondly what those monuments can tell us about the character and tendencies of the arts of that time. It is, thus, a problem of extremely broad scope, considered from the point of view of geographical distribution alone. This was perhaps the last moment at which we may consider the art of the Mediter­ranean basin to have presented a fundamental, though naturally not homogeneous, whole; in all the lands of the Byzantine Empire, whether or not its political rule was still felt, its artistic hegemony was evident. The questions raised about the character of this art can only be answered satisfactorily when all the arts of the period, toward the close of the seventh century, have been studied and compared in detail.

History has played us the trick, at just this point, of erasing the center of the disc of the Empire, leaving us only fragments of its rim. At all times, Constantinople was unquestionably the most active center of the creative arts of the Eastern Empire; its influence could not but have been felt in all the peripheral areas with which it was in contact. Only through appreciating the importance of this essential unity can we explain the changes and evolutions of such provincial art as has been preserved, changes which are rarely the result of in­dependent progress, but rather show every sign of being dependent upon the dynamic central source.5

There are certain of the provincial areas where we may, in time, be able to assemble sufficient data to clarify this aspect of the problem. In Italy, and particularly in Rome, the Popes were frequently active in the fields of construction and decoration, as the tattered palimpsest of S. Maria Antiqua bears \\itness; one of the most active Popes in this respect was John VII, and the art produced during his brief reign, contemporary \"ith that of Justinian II, should provide valu­able evidence, if only by inference, of \vhat influences were reaching Italy from the East at that time.6

5 Kitzinger's article "On Some Icons ... ", cited above, n. 3, demonstrates this dependence of Roman art upon the Constantinopolitan in a strong way, especially (p. 138) "ith reference to the period of Pope John YII (705-707) when Constantinopolitan influences had hitherto been thought to have been weakest, and Roman art at its most autonomous. 6 Cf. for Roman art of this period the basic study by Kitzinger, Rornische J;Ialerei t'om Beginn des 7. bis Z1/Y JIitte des 8. Jahrhunderts, :'Iunich, n. d. (1936).

6 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

In Greece, and especially at Thessalonika, there would appear to have been a good deal of activity in the arts, but here problems of attribution andaating present greater difficulties in drawing precise parallels for purposes of comparison. The same is true of Egypt, in the present state of our knowledge, for although it is generally agreed that Coptic art remains subject to recurrent waves of influence from the Empire long after Egypt's conquest by the Moslems, the lack of an established chronology, within even a century for the most part, makes analysis and comparison extremely difficult. Yet it is probable that the only way in which these problems of Coptic chronology will one day be solved is by just such correlations between Coptic monu­ments and established and dated works outside Egypt.?

Finally, our documents tell us enough about relations between the Byzantine emperors and the Umayyad caliphs, as well as between their subjects at more humble levels, for us to be fully aware of the dependence of Umayyad art in its more formative stages upon the Byzantine traditions which it supplemented. The happy discoveries made in the Near East in recent years, as well as the generally re­surgent position of Islamic studies, give great hope that our knowledge of Byzantine as well as Sassanian art will be vastly increased as more Islamic material becomes available.8

The purpose of anyone study, at the present stage of our knowledge, could however scarcely embrace with profit all these scattered fields of artistic production. In view of the nature of the central problems of pre-Iconoclastic religious art, the most pressing need is to establish what can be known about the art actually produced in the imperial circle itself; and in the period which concerns us, the surviving

7 On the situation .at Thessalonika in and about the time of Justinian II, cf. J. D. Breckenndge, "The 'Long Siege' of Thessalonika: Its Date and Iconography," B.Z XLVIII, 19~5, pp. II6-zz, with bibliography on just one problem concemmg the decoration of the church of S. Demetrios.

\Yith regard to Coptic art, again the work of Kitzinger is fundamental: "Xotes on Early Coptic Sc~lpture," Archaeologia LXXXVII, 1937, pp. ISIff. At present, HJalmar Torp IS engaged upon studies of Coptic art which it is hoped, will produce a better absolute and relative chronology. In addition much valuable material is being recovered and documented by the Princeton~ Michigan expeditions to the :?I-Ionastery of St. Catherine, ~.Iount Sinai. 8 Grabar h:as added much to ~ur knowledge.of the interrelations of Byzantine and IslamIC art by the .n:tatenal assembled m L'iccmoclasme, esp. Chapter IV, & pp. I03-II2. I~ addi?on, we may look forward to a contribution bOle Grabar, mArs Orzentahs III, I95S. Y g

Introduction 7

imperial art, with negligible exceptions, is .exclusivel~ that of the coinage. It is for this reason that the followmg study IS undertaken on a numismatic basis; its objective is the establishment of the follow­ing facts about the emperor's coinage:

First, what numismatic issues were struck under his reign, in what sequence, and at what dates; Second, what meaning or meanings these coins were in­tended to convey, and hence Third, what the reasons may have been for issuing them.

It should be possible, in the light of this information, to clarify ~0m.e of the attitudes held by official, that is to say, by state and eccleSIastI­cal circles concerning religious images, and particularly their use in the state ~ult. From this, it is to be hoped that something may be deduced about the wider context of the religious art of the time, about the spirit which manifests itself through bot~ style a~d c~ntent as an expression of the outlook of the age. From thIS mat~nal, I~ may be hoped that future research will have on~ more tool WIth. whIch to attack some of the major problems of the hIstOry of Byzan:me art ..

As a first step in this exposition, it is necessary to prov'"lde a bnef historical survev of the principal events of Justinian II's reign, in­sofar as they ~ay be seen to have a bearing upon his numisma~ic activities.9 The reign of Justinian II, whose full name was FlaVIUS

9 The historical exposition given here goes into more detail than wou.ld other­wise be necessary, both because much of the follmving has a beanng up?n the numismatic evidence, and because none of the available. modern studIes are thorough enough in their examination of the penod to furnISh an absolutel! reliable narrative and chronology of events .. It has bee? necessary .to reex­amine all the sources, and to make a few new mterpretatlOns of their mf0rn:-a­tion, in order to clarify all the problems raised about the sequence of Justin­ian II's art and coinage.

The most important single source is the Chronography of Theophanes, 'written in the years 810-815 A. D.: Theophanis Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, L · . 1883 His contemporary the Patriarch Xicephorus, who held the elpzlg,. , d iled t See of Constantinople from 806 to 815, wrote a somewh:at less eta "~ccoun . of events from the time of Maurice (582-602) ~o hIS own day: NzcephoYl Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opuscula Hlstonca, ed. C. de Boor, LeIPZlg,

88 Th - two chronicles may be supplemented by that of ~llchael the I o. e~e . h f 66 n d Syrian, who was Jacobite Patriarch of AntlOc . rom I I . un 1 . II99,. an .

-h l' -ome infonnation not available m the histones Just CIted. w 0 supp les " . Chronique de ""Iichelle Syrien, ed. ] .-B. Chabot, Pans, 1899-1924.

The accounts of these historians, who shared ~any of the same sources, are generally followed by later Byzantine and Synan chroruclers, from whom

8 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian. II

Justinianus, began upon the death of his father Constantine IV, sometime during the summer of 685 A. D.; he was then sixteen years old.10 The Empire was at that time in sounder condition than had been the case for some decades; Constantine IV had beaten off the fi.rst high-watermark assault of the Moslem power in the protracted sIege of Constantinople between 673 and 677, and reasserted the strength of the Orthodox faith at the Sixth Oecumenical Council, held at the capital in 680-68I. This Council condemned the l\1onothe­lete heresy :vhich, while accepting the two Persons of Christ, preached only one will or operation in the personality of Christ; this heresy had been warmly espoused by the preceding emperor, Constans II, and accepted by one Roman Pope, Honorius, whom the Council therefore condemned as a heretic. Of Constantine IV's various actions ~o strengthen the Empire, the only one which was less than a resound­mg Success was his campaign of 679 against the Bulgars, who had we can derive little or no new' f t·

f . m onna IOn except from an occasional indirect J::~:~~ ~ro: J:~~~~~~u~~t ;lunder, usually mistaking Justinian II for described than any of th f' ar m~re nearly contemporary to the events

. e a oremenhoned IS the Lib P t'ft Z· d L Duchesne Paris 1886 hi hr' . er on t ca ZS, e. . It l · b '. ' ,w c supp Ies mfonnahon on events taking place in

a :y, ut IS not always completely reliable' . t spiring at Constantinople and 1 h . m 1 s accounts of what was tran-of Justinian II's second . e.sefw erde ~ the East. Material upon one episode

reIgn IS oun m Agnellus' b'o h fAr h . Felix of Ravenna -..vritten in the ninth . 1 grap y 0 c bIShop Ravennatis ed H~lder E . M century: Lzber PontificaZis Ecclesiae

,. - gger, m 1 onumenta Germania H' t' S' Rerum Lanaobardicarum et It r e zs onae, cnptores ." a zcarumsaec. VI-IX Hannover 8~8 6

Fmally, there is the text of the chur h :1 hI' 1 / ,pp. 3 7-7I. J.-D. Mansi SaC/'orum c'r c counCI e d under Justinian II: 921-1007. ' onCl wrum nova et ampZissima collectio IX, cols.

The nearest thing to a modern stud f J " bv Charles Diehl "L' y 0 ustmIan II is found in the essay P~ris 19'6 pp' 1-3 :mpereuhi~ ahu nlez co~pe," in Choses et gens de Byzance

, -, . I - II, W C a so eXIsts in a . - t 1 . t dE' ' translation. This article follows literally' d th pnva. ~ y-pnn e nghsh of Theophanes and Xicephorus. (Onlv Sli~~th:am er uncntict~~y dthe accounts bv Alexandre Embiricos L'Empere.u·y " J or~ roman IClZe IS a drama

, 'au nez coupe' Ch . b . cmq actes, Paris 1929 ambitious and I b t . ronzque yzantzne en

" e a ora e enough to tax an th smaller th~n the Yankee Stadium.) Yeater In .the highly condensed account of the reigns of Justini _ .

specLhc source references are not indicated except h an II whIch fOllows, tation, or of disagreement between sources· aris were a questlon of interpre-10 t\. b h f' J "'. , es. • rot er 0 ustilllan II, named Heraclius i" . . Letter" from Constantine IV to Pope Benedict II ~u:enhoned m a "Sacred p. 363. The lett~r, which has not been preserved G t:d m the Llbe: Pont. I, sumably dated trom late in the year 68 X fu h e papal archIves, pre­occurs; he may have died before- J ustin~- I~ rt er mentIOn of this brother

assumed the lDlperium.

Introduction. 9

recently invaded the Balkans, and whom he was unable to dislodge from their new strongholds.

The first actions of Justinian II's new reign were designed to con­tinue this procedure of strengthening the position of the Empire, both internally and in relation to allies and enemies abroad. To make plain his adherence to the tenets of strict Orthodoxy, he held a synod in the Great Palace to confirm the Acts of the Sixth Council.ll In 688

11 Documentary evidence for this Synod is scattered and, in part, confused; since inferences have been drawn about it which have a bearing upon Justinian II's presumed conception of his imperial function with regard to ecclesiastical affairs, we shall trouble to go into the problem:

The account of the Synod is first mangled by Theophanes, where, under A. M. 6177 (ed. de Boor, pp. 361-2), confusion ... vas created by an uncertainty regarding the date of the later Quinisexte Council (d. below, n. 14), and compounded by Theophanes' losing sight of the distinction between this Synod and that Council. The Synod is mentioned in the Lib. Pont. I, p. 368, which describes Pope Conon's receipt of Justinian's sacra regarding his Synod and its new text of the Acts of the Sixth Council; and the sacra itself is pre­served and published by ?\Iansi, op. cit. XI, cols. 737-8, at the head of one text of the Acts of the Sixth Council, the one which it had conveyed.

It has been suggested by F. Garres, "Justinian II und das ramische Papst­tum," BZ XVII, 1908, pp. 432-54, that Justinian II was abrogating the rights due the papal and patriarchal authority to publish the acts of an oecumenical council; thus this was the first move in a concerted caesaropa­pistic campaign by the young emperor to bring the See of Rome under the complete sway of his own authority. This seems rather an overstatement of the situation on several counts, the most important being the lack of evidence that at this period such publication was considered the particular prerogative of the ecclesiastical authorities; to the contrary, the initiative in each of the great church councils was taken by the reigning emperor, from Constantine I on, and he was never in any case considered to be infringing upon clerical rights by these actions. The emperor held ex-officio, in fact, the rank of deacon in the church hierarchy. In the same way, it was customary for the emperor to take the responsibility for circulating the completed acts of the councils. Although Rome shortly found reason to object to certain of Justinian II's actions, there is no indication that his promulgation of the texts of the Si.'l:th Oecumenical Council was in any way disappro\-ed.

The explanation for holding the Synod seems to be more simple. There is an indication that the volume of the Acts of the Sixth Council \vhich was the property of the imperial palace had strayed from its place in the palace archives, and was found in the offices of the chancellery. (Cf. :'Iansi, op. cit. XII, cols. 189-96). Wnen the volume was located and returned, it was deemed desirable that new copies, checked in every way for authenticity and accuracy, should be prepared-perhaps because, as the emperor intimates in his sacra, some falsified versions had been circulated (presumably by recalcitrant :'Ionotheletes) while the original ,"olume was missing from its rightful place.

Some misapprehension may have arisen, furthermore, because, early in 686, the ex-patriarch Theodore, "who had been deposed by Constantine IV

IO Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

he conducted a major campaign against the Bulgars and Slavs in Macedonia, where he succeeded in relieving their pressure on the native populations. Finally, about the same time, he concluded a new treaty with the Moslems, on even more favorable terms than those secured by his father after the rout of 677 ;12 his troops had been on the offensive along the southern borders, a fact which may have influenced th~ Moslems to buy a firmer peace, and his ablest general, Leontius, seIZed full control of Armenia and the rest of the sub-Caucasus, which had shown signs of slipping into the Moslem orbit.

In 692 , however, this string of successes was broken when the Moslems, accusing the Byzantines of violating the terms of the treaty, invaded the province of the First Armenia, and defeated Justinian II's army at the battle of Sebastopolis. \Vhatever the ostensible cause of the Moslem attack,13 its result was clear: Armenia surrendered to Moslem authority, and the Empire lost valuable prestige throughout the borderlands.

In the meantime, however, the emperor continued to concern him­self with domestic affairs as well. He held a church council on a more ambitious scale than the synod of 686, in the same Trullan Hall of the Great Palace where the Sixth Council itself had met· since neither that nor the preceding Fifth Council of 553 had deal~ with matters ~f c~urch ~nd la! discipline, this. new council of Justinian II's, meet­mgm 692 , was mtended to be SImply a continuation of the proceed-

in 679 (on the eve of the Sixth Council) for his Monothelete views had re­~~e~~~ bee: r~stored to .the See of Constantinople. Although Theodore . e v lIDse with utter cIrcumspection during this second term of office 1t might well have seemed desirable to take thlS' dr t' f d ' tr . hi d ama lC way 0 emon-s atmg s a herence to full Orthodox tenets as well as that of his emperor 12. Although !~eoph~nes ~ates the new treaty'with the Moslems at the begin: mng of J us~an II s reIgn, Moslem sources date it to A. H. 69 '689 AD. ~. A. R. Glbb,~. t'. "'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan," The Encyclopedia of J·t .. New Ed. 1:2, Lelden, I954, pp. 76-7. In view of the unreliability of Th Sat:, anes' dating at this particular point the j\,foslem chronoloP"'t f eop -13 Cf bel 6 ff f '. " 0.1 seems pre erable.

. ow, pp. 9 ., or an analyslS of the various imputed causes rupture of -:uab-Byzantine relations. \Vhatever the ostensible cause it o.f t~~ appear obnous that the break took place simplv because th }I l' wou then secure enough to resume active hostilities o~ce m e

d" as ems were

ed t k ore, an so were pre par 0 ma -e any reasonably adequate provocation serv th' -14 The dating of the Quinisexte Council has occasioned e err purpose. was n:cessary, large~y because of the various conflictin ~::h difficulty than dates ill use at the time. For a discussion of the r bl g ods of keepmg Histaire des Conciles IIIl, pp. 560-I. J. B Burv P;j. em, c~. Hefele-Leclercq,

. . , tstory at the Later Roman

Introduction II

ings of 68r, concerning itself solely with bringing up to date this aspect of church affairs. It came to be known, therefore, as the Quinisexte Council. It issued one hundred and two canons dealing with all matters, lay and clerical, in which the authority of the Church needed to be applied or restated.15

These acts were drawn up, unfortunately, by a council of clergy drawn exclusively from Eastern dioceses, so that whenever a question of preference between the practices observed in the Eastern churches and those of other communions, such as the Armenian or the Roman, arose, the natural decision was in favor of the familiar one.

This may not have been of major importance with regard to the feelings of the Armenians-although it was the Patriarch of Armenia, Sabbatius, who surrendered his land to the ~Ioslems the follmving year, and offense taken with Constantinople over these matters might <:onceivably have influenced his decision-but when it came to offend­ing Rome, really serious matters were at stake. The principal points of difference on the theoretical level were the recognition of 85 Apos­tolic Canons, of which Rome acknowledged only 50, and the asser­tion of the equality of the bishops of Constantinople with those of Rome, an equality to which seniority of establishment did not entitle them. In matters of practice, the Council prohibited fasting on Satur­days, a Roman custom; it permitted the lower orders of the clergy to remain married, if already in that condition, a practice disapproved at least on principle by the Holy See; the command to abstain from blood and from the meat of strangled animals infringed upon certain \Vestern customs; and finally, a decree that Christ should be repre-

Empire II, London, r889, pp. 326-7, note 3, pointed out the confusion in Theophanes under A. }I. 6I77 (cited above, n. II), where the chronicler had read correctly the date improperly preserved in the Acts of the Council (}Iansi, op. cit. XI, cois. 921-1006), but failed to place it in the proper era; so Theoph­anes arrived at a date of 706 A. D. for the Council. He knew that this must be wTong, since the Council had taken place during Justinian's first reign; so he placed his account of the Council at the very beginning of that reign, taking advantage of the opportunity to confuse the Council \vith the S'y-nod of 686, and to summarize the latter part of the }lonothelete Controversy. The Quinisexte Council took place, as Leclercq shows, during Indictio Y, that is, after September first 6g1 A. D.-but Leclercq, op. cit. IIIl, p. 561, himself then errs in starting Indictio V in 692. 15 For the Acts of the Council, d. Mansi, op. cit. XI, cols. 921-Io06; they are summarized in Hefele-Leclercq, op. cit. IIII, pp. 562-75. Our own discussion is below, pp. 78 ff ..

12 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

sented in human form, rather than as a Lamb, condemned one of the more common themes of symbolic early Christian imagery which had been quite popular in the West.

It would seem almost certain that the framers of these canons were not aware of the extent of their offense in the eves of Rome ·16 the tone of the Acts conveys the impression that th~ Eastern bishops felt ~erely that t?eir Western colleagues, in those troubled years, were m need of guIdance on a few points where unfortunate political cir­cumstances, such as barbarian invasions, had compelled temporary abandonment of the truly correct procedure.

"Whatever the intentions and motivations of the framers of the canons may have been, the fact remains that the Acts of the Council were. completed and d,:ly signed by the emperor, as well as by the patnarchs of Constantmople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, a~d by two hundred eleven other bishops and representatives of bIshop:;. then they were forwarded to Rome. There, Pope Sergius, recogmzmg what he felt was an affront to his dignity as well n abrogation of his powers and status, not only refused to sign the ~c;s but f?rba~e their publication in any church under his jurisdiction. Th~ ensUl~g disput.e dragged on for months, with action delayed by the long hm~ reqmred for communications to pass from East to "West and back ag~; at length the emperor resorted to the expedient, SUCcess­fu~y car~ed out by' Constans .II in 653, of kidnapping the Pope. On thIS o~caslOn, the effort ended m a low-comedy debaclefor the imperial agenb, and the papal hand was strengthened rather than oth ._

J .'. II h ef\V1::.e. ~stlll~an ad no further chance for reprisal against the Pope,

for III 69::> the emperor was overthrown bv a coup led b h' t hil al L . 1- J Y IS ers w e

gene.r , eontms.' The unpopularitv encrendered b J t" , d f J 6 Y us lnIan s e-eats at the hands of both the Caliphate and th P h

b . . e apacy ad not een llllhgated at home, where brutal ministe S . d .

d · d h r carne out a polIcy eSlgne ,per aps, to \veaken the traditional po\ver of the nobility;

16 On the other hand, F. Gorres, op. cit., sees these C everythmg else Justinian II did as a direct tt anons, as well as almost authority on the papacy. As rem~ked abo' a empt to impose the imperial h . . \e.n. II It ISq t' bl t e Issue presented itself in this ruise to "th ' . ues lOna e whether

1. Following his conquest of -~enia T ~I ter antagorust at the time. :\n r ' Lton lUS had been d • ato la; but by 695, he had been under an t f ma e general of us back to the date of the battle of Sebast e~" or three years-which takes have been blamed for that disaster. opo IS, and suggests that he might

Introduction 13

so the Constantinople mob flocked to the standard of revolt, and jeered in the Hippodrome while Justinian II was disfigured v.rith slit nose and tongue, in token of deposition, and then exiled to Cherson in the Crimea.

Leontius ruled only three years, until 698, and the only major event of his reign was the military campaign which resulted in his downfall. The continuing expansion of Moslem territory led to the fall of Carthage in 697, and Leontius dispatched a powerful naval and military force to attempt its recapture. Although this expedition had some initial success, and even reoccupied the city, the Moslems in tum obtained reinforcements, frightened off the Byzantine fleet, and pennanently took the city of Carthage in 698.

The unsuccessful armada, aware of its disgrace, decided its only hope of avoiding punishment was to rebel against its emperor; the rebels named one of their admirals, Apsirnar, new emperor under the name Tiberius III, and sailed for Constantinople. There they met with greater success than at Carthage; Leontius was deposed, mutilated like Justinian II, and exiled to a monastery. Tiberius III proved not an incapable monarch; under his rule the Empire was able at least to hold its own against the expandirIg :Moslem power.

In the meantime, in the Crimea, Justinian II had been forced to flee from Cherson .vhen the authorities there discovered that he was plotting to recover his throne. He took refuge ''lith the Khagan of the Khazars, one of the most powerful of the Hunnish tribes of the step­pes, and married the Khagan's sister-gennan, whom he named Theodora. Tiberius III, infonned of these events, bribed the Khagan to murder or surrender Justinian II; forewarned by his loyal wife, Justinian escaped a second time, gathered a boatload of supporters at Cherson, and set sail across the Black Sea.

It was now the autumn of 704; the little party \\intered at the mouth of the Danube, after experiencing ,iolent stonns at sea, and there they contacted the Bulgars, who were only too happy to con­tribute an anny to Justinian II's campaign to \yin back his throne. It was not until the summer of 705, however, that this barbarian host descended upon the walls of Constantinople.18 The inhabitants of the

18 Theophanes, ed. de Boor, p. 37-1-, records the capture of the city under A. )1. 6I97 (70-1--5 A. D.), but justinian's acts of revenge under the following ArulUs )Iundi, pp. 31-1--5, Since the latter year is termed the first of Justinian

Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

city met them with jeers and catcalls, and might have staved safe w~thin their mountainous ramparts, had not Justinian bee~ able to slIp through a small gap or postern near the Blachernae gate, occupy the Blachernae palace, and rally his own supporters. The fickle populace deserted Tiberius Apsimar at this moment, and Justinian was able to resume his throne without having had to resort to the dangerous expedient of allowing the Bulgar army inside the walls of Constantinople.

.A ~eat tri~ph was celebrated in the Hippodrome, to which both T~benus Apsun~r and the deposed Leontius were dragged. Justi­man II, seated ill the Kathisma, presided over the races with one :?ot on the neck of each of his prostrate foes, while the mob chanted,

Thou hast trodden on the asp and the basilisk; the lion and the dra~on thou hast trampled under foot,"19 playing on the names of Apsunar and Leontius. When the races were over, Justinian sent them both t~ the Kynegion to be beheaded. His vengeance fell alS() on the. Patnarch Callinicus, who had consecrated the usurpers; he was blinded, and sent to Rome as a living witness of Justinian II's r~turn to power. Havoc was wrought in the army and the civil ser­VIce, as all who had supported the usurpers were executed. _ Whil~ all th~ went on, the emperor dispatched an armada to

Khazana, to bnng back his wife Theodora. This fleet came to grief in another of the autumn storms for which the Black Sea is famous; when he learned of it, the Khagan sent a message to his broth . 1 "F er-ln-a:v: 001, should you not have sent two or three ships to fetch your ~~fe, and not have killed so many men? Did you expect to have to seIZe her by force?20 Learn that a son is born to you' send d t th,em both.".Wben at last the mother and child were ~afely ~~u:~t II s second reIgn, he must have assumed the crown . . the year, in September; the execution of hi before the begmnmg of considered his enemies, and the ceremonial r:w:~~kance agamst those. he would inevitably have consumed some time erh g of his Bulgar allIes, months or more. ,p aps as much as several

19 Psalms xci, I3, in the Greek version. This is the . mosarc of Christ as the \Varrior in the A hb' h subject, of course, of the C . " . ' rc IS op's Pal R . orrado RICCI, jlfonumentz - tavoli storichi d . ". ace, avenna. d. 1934. PI. XXXV & PI. B. ez mosmcz d'l Ravenna V, Rome,.' 20 Justinian might well ha ... ·e thouo-ht so. The Kh the most reliable of friends in the ~a-t nor hagan had not proven himself Khagan's reproof is quoted in The~ph pwas _ e to d~ so in the future. The Chabot II, p. 478. ., . 37:>, and m :Michael Syrus, ed.

Introduction IS

to Constantinople, Justinian crowned them both, and ruled jointly with his infant son, who was named Tiberius in further imitation of the practices of Justinian I, the Great.

The year 705 saw significant changes in the leadership of the other world centers, Damascus and Rome, as well. Abd el-Malik died, after a twenty-five year reign of exceptional brilliance, to be succeeded by his son Walid, a far more fervent partisan of Arabisation. In the same year, one of the ablest of the "Greek" Popes, John VII, was elected to the See of Rome. It was with this Pope that Justinian II resumed negotiations over the Acts of the Quinisexte Council, with a view to obtaining the needed papal signature. The blinded Pa­triarch Callinicus was undoubtedly an effective messenger; but he was followed also by two metropolitan bishops bearing those six tomes which Pope Sergius had refused to sign thirteen years earlier. Yet the emperor seems to have been far less overbearing this time, as the fact that his emissaries were bishops, not soldiers as before, would indicate. The terms in which Justinian couched his demands were conciliatory in the extreme. He urged the elderly pontiff to con­vene a synod to which the Acts might be communicated; this synod should then confirm those canons which seemed worthy of approval. and reject those w'hich were unsatisfactory. Instead, John returned the Acts unemended to the emperor, saying that he could find no fault with any of them-yet he still neglected to sign! Thus, when he died shortly afterward, the , .... hole business had to be taken up all over again ",ith his successor, Constantine. 21

By this time, his purges completed, Justinian II had a falling out \\ith his erstwhile ally, the Khan of the Bulgars, and in 708 he led an expedition far up the Black Sea coast to Anchialus. His army was ambushed and routed, and the survivors returned to Constantinople in full flight. The following year the ;\Ioslems, on the move once more, besieged the important trading center of Tyana, 'vell north of the Taurus range in Asia }Iinor; a relief expedition was slaughtered, and the city fell to the Arabs. From this time on, }loslem raids on Byzan­tine territory became bolder and bolder; small parties of marauders rode right up to the Bosphorus, looting and burning as they went.

21 It may be noted, however, that our source for this episode is wholly one­sided; it is mentioned only in the Lib. Pont. I, pp. 385-6, and not in any Eastern source.

I6 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

Moslem pressure increased, in preparation for the full-scale invasion which was to follow only eight years later. .

In the summer of 7II, Constantinople received the ceremorual visit of the reigning Pope, Constantine, who was honored with great reverence by the emperor and his son, as our Roman sources relate. The disputed canons of the Quinisexte Council were again discussed, and presumably agreed upon-but the fact remains that we have no surviving copy of the Acts of 692 signed by any Roman Pope.

Scarcely had the papal party returned home, when they learned that the prince \vith whom they had so recently conferred was dead, and the little Augustus Tiberius who had met them on the road to Constantinople, butchered at the very altar of the Church of the Virgin at Blachernae. Justinian's unremitting vengefulness had be­gotten further violence. The object had been his home of exile, Cherson. Three ill-advised expeditions to the Crimea, designed, ac­cording to our sources,22 to punish the Chersonites for their attempt to betray him to Tiberius Apsimar, furnished instead a rebel armada to overthrow Justinian himself. In effect, it was the same story as in 698: the imperial forces, prevented from accomplishing their mission by the interference of the Khazars, found themselves obliged to revolt against their ruler as the only possible way of saving them­selves from punishment for their failure.

Justinian, when he feared, but could not be certain, that his last expedition had come to grief, committed the tactical error of leaving Constantinople with his field army, to scout in the direction of Pontus.23 In this way, the rebel fleet was able to seize the capital in his absence. His troops were subverted, and Justinian II fell easily into the rebels' hands, for instant execution.

2~ We ha::e taken t~e liberty of re~ucing Theophanes' recorded four expedi­tions to ~lcephorus three: respectn-ely, pp. 377-81 and 44-8; since Theoph. obnously confuses dlfferent aspects of one and the same expedition. It may be noted that pure revenge may not have been the sole motive for these punitive expeditions, in view of the continual interference of the Khazars in the development of events in and around Cherso!l. 23 There is a hint, in. contemporary events in Armenia and Lazica (ef. V. ~rumel, Les regestes aes. actes du Patnarcat I, i, pp. 127-8, with extended b~bhography), that JustInIan II had good reason to fear trouble from that drrectlOn; furthermore, the knowledge that the chief of the rebels was an Armeman may have persuaded hun that they would move first in that di­rectIon, before attackmg Constantmople itself.

Introduction 17

The chief of the rebels, the Armenian Philippicus .Bard~nes, as-

d th Ie and proclaimed the Monothelete faIth remstated; sume e purp , " . Pope Constantine, hearing of this, took great alarm, but hIS f~ars

. t d Bardanes' reign \vas short and Monothelehsm \vere soon qUle e . '. died with him. The succession of petty rulers who .follO\'\ed to the throne served only to set the scene for the assumptIOn of power by Leo III, the great Isaurian, in ~larch of 71.1 A. D., when the Mosl:ms were again about to lay siege to Constantmople, for the second tIme in forty years; but that is another history.

THE COI~S OF JGSTIXIAX II

The ~sefulness of numismatic evidence for the art historian will vary WIdely fro~ p:riod to period, and from country to country. By wa~ of generaliz~tIOn, .the following statement may be considered :ralid fO.r R~man Impenal coins and their successors, the Bvzantine Issues m VIrtually all periods' Th' . " . , . " . ese coms represent a sIgmficant field o~ ~he Imper~al Iconography, never entirely neglected by the authontIes. for theIr ability to bring messages to the general public, 0: t? speCIal segments thereof; the coinage tends to reflect then sIgruficant ~han~es of imperial policy as they may be suscep~ible of representatIOn m the imperial iconography d' . . ,an In any case are more relIable guIdes to iconography than to StyliStI'C ch t' Th . . 1 . arac er. e Im?ena comage,. moreove~, partook of some of the sacred character enjoyed by offiCIal portraIts of the emperor 1 Thus th . .

't bl . e comage m-eVI a y represents the intentions of the imperial auth 't t d h . on y, 0 a

e.gree per aps varymg according to the distance of the issuin mmt from the seat of that authority and the actual th g . . ' power ere exercIsed. When, as m the case of the issues of Ju-t"· II . h d . "lillan ,a radIcal

c ange was rna e m the nature of the types represent d . saf 1 th t " e , We can

e y assume a a sIgnificant shift in imperial policy itself h d taken place. a

Our first necessity, then, will be to describe th t· f" b th O Fe} pes 0 coms Issued

y IS emperor. or our descriptions we ba'e ou . k b h . '. ,~ r wor ot on the pertment sectIons of the general catalogues of th B' . . .

e } zantme comage, 2

1 That the imperial image as presented on' . , COIDS reta d' ter as an object worthy of reverence even after th~ R _ IDe Its sacred charac-and even in the eves of the Orthodox l' h'l e.storatlOn of the Images . . - . conop 1 es d ' IDcIdent at. the Eighth Oecumenical Council of 8' 15 . emo7Istrated by the col. 388), CIted by Ladner in D. O. Papers VII 69 (~fansl, op. CIt. XVI, 2 These are: J. Sabatier, Description generale' y~/2, n. 1~6. Pans, .186:2, pp .. 19-2~ a~d 3:2-5, PI. XXXVII an m~nn~lt:s byzat!lines II, Impenal Bvzantme Coms tn the British v.us (h d XXXv.III; \\. Wroth

• .i.", eum ereaft B ' 1908, pp. 330-45 and 354-7, Pl. XXXVIII XL' er MC) .II, London, By::antmes (ill RUSSIan) VIII, St. Petersbu; I' and J. TolstoI, 2J,lonnaies PI. 61-2 and 63. g, 914, pp. 832-70 and 800-6 - ,

IS

Coins of Jus#nian II 19

and on the relatively few specialized works on this immediate set of issues.3

"Vhen we examine the coinage of Justinian II, as that of any other of the emperors of his period, we find that the principal determining

3 The only studies relating specifically to the coinage of Justinian II are the following two: Giulio di San Quintino, Delle monete dell'imperatore Gius­tiniano II, Torino, I845; and A. R. Bellinger, "The Gold Coinage of Justinian II," Archaeology III, June, 1950, pp. I07-1I.

San Quintino's monograph, which seems to have escaped the notice of the cataloguers listed in n. 2 above, has been largely superseded by their work, since they had at their disposal considerably greater quantities of specimens from which to form their conclusions. It does have at least an academic inter­est, however, in its valiant attempt to survey the problems of the bronze coinage of the period. The author gathered a large number of pieces, for the most part of Italian provenance, and although many must now be reattributed, his plates repay careful study, as has been shown by the work of Ricotti Prina mentioned below.

Bellinger's article is not in the nature of a catalogue, but gives a clear idea of the qualitative as well as the stylistic distinction with which the coinage of Justinian II must be credited. The same author has returned to a related area of study in a more recent article, "Coins and Byzantine Imperial Policy," Speculum XXXI, 1956, pp. 70-8I.

More directly pertinent to our own study, although specifically concerned not with the coins of Justinian II but with those of his period as a whole, is the key article by L. Laffranchi, "La numismatica di Leonzio II. Studio su un periodo della monetazione ltalo-Bizantina," Numismatica e Scienze Affini (now Numismatica) IV, I938, pp. 73-4; ibid. V, 1939, pp. 7-15, 91-2. Re­printed as a complete essay, Perugia, I940. Laffranchi, although not a specialist in the Byzantine field, was able by the application of techniques of stylistic, iconographic, orthographic and paleographic methodology to make a set of convincing new attributions of mints for the Italian coinage of this period; most important of all, he succeeded in identifying for the first time the coins of Leontius, in a series previously attributed to Leo III, by means of a mono­gram on certain \Vestern bronzes, which monogram, including an unmistaka­ble "T", must pertain to Leontius, rather than to Leo (identified on his coins simply as "Leon.")

("'lore recently, a simple explanation has been found for the identification of Leontius on most of his coins as "Leo," in the fact that the latter "vas the imperial name he assumed at his coronation, the former his original given name. Just so Apsimar became the emperor Tiberius, Bardanes Philippicus, and so on. The similarity of the parts of the double name, "Leo Leontius," was probably what led the chroniclers to overlook his official name, and retain his former one, to the long-standing confusion of struggling numismatists: J. P. C. Kent, "The :\Iystery of Leontius II," Numismatic Chronicle VI: I4, 1954, pp. 21 7-8.)

Finally, there is the important study by Diego Ricotti Prina, "La mone­tazione siciliana nell'epoca bizantina," Numismatica XVI, I950, pp. 26-60 & PI. I-IV, which further clarifies the situation as regards Sicilian mints of this period, as well as some related problems, as we shall indicate in our notes below.

20 Numismatic Iconography of J1tstinian II

types ~r~ to be found in the gold issues, and most specifically among the solIdi; not only the fractional gold, but the coins in silver and bronze, form ~elatively simple sub-types to the solidi (although in the West a ce:tam an::ount of greater liberty in creating variant types was e~erclsed~, ~th the normal differentiations demanded by the established cntena of denominational indications. For the purposes of our study, then, only the types of the solidi need be described; nor do :ve need ~o delineate the precise epigraphy of the legends, or the va:rous officma-marks. represented among the known specimens. For t~IS and fo:- other ~etails, the catalogues cited above provide informa­~IOn, pending pUblication of a corpus. Laffranchi's essay, just cited, mclude~ ~ able .study of the epigraphy of the coin legends of these and ad)Olrung reIgns.

TYPE I-A

Obv. IUSTINIANUSPEAV Bust of Justm' l'an II f' b dl ' acmg, ear ess (exc:p.t on one specimen where he has a light beard and the SuspICIOn of a mustache"'); he wears the crown with " 1 b . " gous cruclger, actually a semicircular ornament surmount d b

di ·.. e ya cross; VltIslOn and chlamys, the latter fastened at the ri ht shoulder by a conventional fibula; in his right hand he holds ~he true globus cruciger.

Rev. VICTORIA AVGU Cross potent CONOE. Additional officina letters inscription. 5

on three steps; beneath, appear at the end of the

PLATE I, 1.

4 The exception is a solidus from the A. M. Friend J C 11' . Dumbarton Oaks. ' r., 0 ectIon, now ill 5 This group of coins is usually catalogued to th . I but, as Prof. Bellinger has pointed out bel~: er ,nth th.ose of Our Type by .v~e of t~e youthful portraiture and ~f the J~ to a dIstInct ~eries.' ~oth which IS conSIstent despite changes in d' E erent o~verse lllscnptlOn, p. 331, Kos. 3, 5 and 6 (Constantinople mint)l~S. xamples lllclude BMC II, 30 (given by Wroth to Carthage but now a~~~f' 32 (Carth,:g~) and p. 336, p. II-5); also Tolstoi, op. cit. VIII, p. 837 I3 & 6 ed to Sardillla; d. below, and Laffranchi, Numismatica e Scienze Affini ~ , land p. 843,41 (Carthage); (Constantinople) and p. II, PI. V, figs. 1-2 (Rom~) 939, p. 8, PI. I, figs. 1-2

The absence of the letter "D" for "D . . . . ,ommus " CT . • ITIlght have been ISSUed before the death of C '. sug"ests that thIS type given ~he r:ank of Augustus in 680. But in t~n~t:ntme IV; Justinian II was verse mscnptlOn to be in the plural with f ase we shOuld expect the re­is not; and to judge by dated examples, tr:ee;,:ce to t~; Augusti, which it

ardless bronze (d. below,

TYPE I

Coins of Justinian II 21

This type also seems to occur in the fractional gold, and there would appear to be a counterpart \vith beardless por­trait in the bronze.6

Obv. DIUSTINIANUSPEA V Bust of Justinian II, facing, costumed as above, but with full beard and mustache.

Rev. VICTORIA AVGU Cross potent on three steps, with mint and officina marks, all as above.7 PLATE I, 2

Fractional gold of the Constantinople mint has the imperial portrait facing, as above, while that from Italy is distin­guished by a profile beardless portrait, conventional from preceding reigns.s Denominations are indicated by changes in the base of the cross on the reverse: on the semis the cross

n. 6) was issued, certainly at least in part, after 685. It is probably best to consider this merely the initial issue of the new emperor, carried on longer at some officinae than at others. 6 A tremissis is illustrated by Laffranchi, loco cit., p. II, PI. Y,figs. 17-18 (Rome) . Prof. Bellinger has also drawn our attention to the series of bronze coins "ith beardless portraits, some of which appear to have inscriptions beginning without the "D", although others decidedly do not. One consistent group of bronzes with beardless portrait, in both folles and half-foIles, has the 'word "PAX" on the reverse, and is generally some'what heavier than other bronze issues of Justinian II of the same denominations. If, as we have suggested above, pp. 9ff, the early years of Justinian II's first reign were devoted to promoting peace and hannony throughout the empire and abroad, this series may be linked to the beginning of his reign in a direct way. Xo conclusions of this sort can safely be drawn, however, until far more research has been devoted to these coins, and the dated examples fully collated. Published examples include Sabatier, op. cit. II, p. 26, 21; Tolstoi, op. cit. VIII, p. 853, 79, & p. 856, 87-8; and R. Ratto, Sale Catalogue, Lugano, I930, Xo. 1696. 7 Rl,fC II, pp. 330-1, 1-2,4,7-10 (Constantinople); p. 337, 33-6 (Carthage); p. 336, 29 (Carthage-Sardinia); p. 341, 51 (Rome); pp. 342-3, 56-9 (South Italy); also Tolstoi, op. cit. YIII, pp. 835-40, I-12, 14, 15, 17-26; p. 843, 40 (Carthage); Laffranchi, loco cit., p. 8, PI. I, figs. 3-4 (Constantinople); p. 10, PI. III, 1-2 (Rave=a); p. II, PI. V, 3-4 (Rome); p. 12, PI. IX, 1-4 (Syracuse); and also probably p. 12, PI. YIII, 13-4 (S. Italy), at this time rather than after 705; also Ricotti Prina, Numismatica XVI, 1950, pp. 41-2, I24-30 ( Syracuse). 8 San Quintino, op. cit., pp. 12-3 & passim, makes much of the beardless portraits, coupling them 'with those on the 'Western fractional gold to toy with the idea that the emperor was beardless throughout his entire first reign. Of course the fractional gold provides no evidence for the imperial portraiture, and the beardless type of solidi were probably issued over a far shorter per­iod; d. above, n. 5.

22 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian I I

potent stands on a globus (PLATE I, 3); on the triens, it has no base other than its own barred foot (PLATE I, 4)9.

TYPE II

Obv. IHSCRISTOSREXREGNANTIUM Bust of Christ facing with cross behind head (but . b ) H . . ' . . no.mm us. aIr and beard flowmg; wears pallium over coloblum; right hand in act of benediction in front of breast, Book of Gospels in front of left breast (Book must be supp~rted by the left hand, although this is not visible in field of com).

Rev .. DIUSTINIANUSSERUCHRISTI The emperor, standing fac­mg, bearded. He wears the crown with cross, and long jewelled robes covered by the loros; in his right hand, he holds the cross potent on two steps; in left hand, the mappa. Beneath, CONOP.lO

PLATE I, 5. T~e ~act that the emperor here occupies the reverse of the com IS n:ade doubly clear by the presence of the mint-mark un~er his feet, :md by the fact that on the triens, the onI variety of fractIonal gold certainly known to dat th !

t t h . e, e cro"s po en c anges Its base to the plain base seen on th f t . e reverse

o nens, Type I (PLATE I, 6).1l

I Fractional gold: B1'JC II, p. 333, I<}-21 (Constantino Ie). (Carthage); p. 342, 54 (Rome); pp. 343-5, 61-73 (S. Itat). :li 3~8, 37-~4 VIII, pp. 843-7, 42-4, 46-59; pp. 849-50 67-71 . L if Y'. 0 stOl, op. Cft.

PI. I: II-2 & 17-8 (Constantinople); p. I~, PI IiI a ranchl, lac. cit., p. 8, ~L V, 19-20 (Rome); p. 13, Pl. IX, 19-20 (S ~c ,?-IO (~avenna); p. LI, eft., .p. 42, 131-6 (Syracuse). yr use). and Rlcottl Prina, lac.

Sliver: BAIC II P 334 ?5 (Co t . pp. 850-1,72-3. ,. ,- ns antmople); Tolstoi, op. cit. VIII,

Bronze: BllIC II, p. 335 (unnumbered . (Carth?-ge); ~. 339, 47 (Sicily); Tolstoi, op. ~i(~:i~ntmoPle); p. 339, 45-6 franchi, loc.cd., p.8, Pl.I, 25-6 (Constantin 1· , pp. 852-7, 78-92. Laf-p. 13, PI. IX, 21-30 (Syracuse)· and Ri tt°.PPrine).; p. 1.0' PI. III, 25-8 (Rav~nna)·

Kn d ' co 1 a lac ·f ' own ates on the bronzes include the e ' . Cl ., pp. 42-3, 137-152. X. These are usually dated from 685 th Y ars I, II, III, V (?) VII and th d t f ' e year of acc· " e a e 0 coronation as Augustus in 68 . f . esslo~, rather than from n. ~o, as well as F. D6lger, Regesten de~· c .. Ricottl Prina, lac. cit., p. 58, I;Blches I, Monaco, 1924, p. 28, n. 236. KafSerurkunden des Ostromischen

BAIC II, pp. 331-2, II-I7 (Constantin I Tolst?i, op. cit. VIII, pp. 840-1, 27-34. r.::te); p .. 336, 3I (Carthage-Sardinia). stantin0rle). ' anchl, loco Cft., p. 8, PI. I, 5-6 (Con~ 11 Fractional gold: BcUC II p Tolstoi, op. cit VIII, p. 844 ~. ; (~3, 2~-3 (tremissis of Constantin I) .

, semrs taken f S op e , rom abatier, op. cit. II,

Coins of Justinian II 23

TYPE III

Obv. DNIHSCHSREXREGNANTIUM Bust of Christ facing, same pose as in Type II, but facial type is different, triangular shape, with hair arranged in double row of curls, while the beard is short and curly as well.

Rev. DNIVSTINIAl.~USMULTUSAN Bust of the emperor, facing, \vearing the crown with "globus cruciger," and jewelled costume with loros; in right hand, the cross potent on three steps; in his left, a globus inscribed PAX, and surmounted by a double-barred ("patriarchal") cross.12 PLATE 1,7.

The fractional gold issues show the conventional changes in the cross potent held in the emperor's right hand. Hence, although no mint-mark is used, the emperor is still indicated as occupying the reverse (PLATE I, 8).13

p. 23, 4 & PI. XXXVII, 4, apparently drawn from an actual piece on which the standing emperor holds a cross potent on globus base; but the lack of obverse reference and source in Sabatier makes it impossible to substantiate the authenticity of this otherwise unique coin), and pp. 847-8, 60-3, (all tremisses); and Laifranchi, lac. cit., p. 8, Pl. I, 19-20 (tremissis of Constanti­nople).

Silver: BMC II, p. 334, 26-7 (Constantinople); Tolstoi, op. cit. VIII, p. 85 1 , 74-5·

Among the wide variety of Sicilian bronzes dated to the first reign are certain ones with standing emperor type similar to that of the reverse of this issue. Cf. BMC II, p. 340, 48-50, and Laifranchi, loco cit., p. 13, PI. IX, 25-6. These are, on the other hand, only variants of standing-emperor types which otherwise go back to types established by Heraclius and Constans II. For the whole problem, d. Ricotti Prina, op. cit. 12 BMC II, p. 332, 18 (Constantinople); p. 341, 53 (Rome); p. 343, 60 (5. Italy); Tolstoi, op. cit. VIII, pp. 841-3,35-9; Laifranchi, lac. cit., p. 9, Pl. II, 33-4 (Constantinople); and Ricotti Prina, loco cit., p. 57, n. I, attributing a coin of this type illustrated in San Quintino, op. cit., to the Sardinian mint.

Ricotti Prina also raises the possibility of a SYTacusan sub-type of this Type III, with emperor in loros costume, but with normal stepped-cross reverse: loco cit., p. 46, 171. If this piece has been accurately described, this type bears the same relationship to our Type III as our Type IV-B does to Type IV; but the question hinges on whether or not the emperor is actually "\vearing the costume of Type III. Inasmuch as Ricorti Prina was unable to be certain of this from the illustration in his source, a sales catalogue, we deem it proper to suggest that this is more probably a Syracusan example of Type I, in bad condition. 13 Cf. the discussion below, pp. 26f.

Fractional gold: BillC II, p. 334. 24 (Constantinople); p. 342, 55 (given to Rome, but more probably South Italian); p. 345, 74 (5. Italy); Tolstoi,

24 Numismatic Iconography oj J1tstinian II

TYPE IV

Obv. DNIHSCHSREXREGNANTIUM Bust of Christ facing exact-ly as on Type III. '

Rev. DNIUSTINIANUSETTIBERIUSPPAU Bust of Justinian II, be~rded, on left, and bust of Tiberius, beardless, on right, both facmg; both wear crowns with "globus cruciger," divitision, and chlamys; . each suP.ports with his right hand a cross potent on steps, WhIch OccupIes the center of the field. 14 PLATE I, 9.

!he fractional gold pieces show the conventional alterations m the cros~ potent held by the two Augusti, confirming that they are still on the reverse of the coin (PLATE I, 10).15

TYPE IV-B

Obv. Similar to reverse of Type IV save that the h ld '. -, co-emperors 0 a globus mscnbed "PAX" and surmounted by a "patriarchal" cross, as on the reverse of Type III.

Rev. Similar to Type I, with the proper epigraphic changes to ac-commodate the existence of two Augusti 16 P . LATE I, II.

op. cit. VIII, p. 844 45 (called a 'b emperor is plain, s~ the piece is s=:~~t ~!~:~ase of th~ c,ross held by the normal flan); pp. 848-<) 64-6' and L ff h' Y

I a t:ellllsslS of WIder than

(c t t' I) , , a ranc 1, DC of P 9 PI II ons an mop e . All the above are he' b" ., . , . ,49-50

Collecti0,n on loan to Dumbarton O:~s~~~m u:: the part of the Whittemore two semisses of this type and from th C ~ Fogg Museum of Art are

Silver: BMC II '_ 8 e ~nstantmople mint. ' , p. 33:» 2 (Constantmople) , d T '

pp. 851-2, 76-7. ,an OlstOl, op. cit. VIII, Bronze: Ricotti Prina loc cit p 6

published follis and five other bro~~es' t ' 172 (Syracuse), as well as an un­Oaks. 0 vanous denominations at Dumbarton

H BMC 1,1, p. 35,4, 1-2 (Constantino Ie)' T ' '. ~affranchI, loc, cit., p. 9, PI. II, 3--6 p(C ' OIS~Ol, op. czt. vIII, p. 892, 1-2; la Fractional gold: BMC II :J onstantmople). (tremissis of Rome); Tolstoi,' J~~d5tI~'I 3-6 ~ConstantinoPle); p. 356 , II

C2t., p. 9, PI. II, 45-6 (semis of Constantin~ )~', 93~4, 4-10; Laffranchi, loco IS a~lso known, as an example in the Shaw C~ll) '~ pIece of '/ 4-solidus weight

:::.ilver: RMC II, p. 355, 7 (Constantino I ,ec on,at Dumbarton Oaks. The ?ronze issues strock concurrentlP e~iTolstOl, op. cit. VIII, p. 895, 12.

Type I'il-B, n. 17, below, y th thIS type are found under 16 BMC II, f' 357, 12 (S. Italy); Toistoi VIII p. 10, PI. 1\, 35-? (Ravenna, erroneously 'd ' p. 893? 3; Laffranchi, IDe. cit., ArtelllluS AnastaslUs); and Ricotti Prin I I entified In the text as a coin of of Ratto" Sales Catalogue, No. 1709 to ~a:c: c~t., p. 57, n. I, the reattribution solIdI IS ill the Pierce Collection at D' b dinia. (Another of these Sa d' 'an

Urn arton Oaks.) r illi

Coins oj Justinian II 25

Solidi and fractional gold of this type are known only from \Vestern mints, including issues of 1/4 solidus, while the ob­verse type was used with conventional reverses on Constan­tinopolitan bronze which appears to have been the normal counterpart of Type IV at that mint (PLATE I, I2),l7

The basic identification of the Byzantine mints is fairly well established, but it was Laffranchi's achievement to arrive at a new and more satisfactory analysis of the mints of Italy for the period leading up to the accession of Leo III, on the basis of more complete information (provenance, local collections, etc,) than had been avail­able to his predecessors. At variance with 'Wroth, then, Laffranchi distinguished four mints in Italy: at Ravenna, at Rome, somewhere in South Italy, and in Sicily. The Sicilian mint of this period can be proven by certain mint-marks to have been located at Syracuse; that in South Italy, which was in close touch with the mint of the Lom­bard dukes of Beneventum, ID1.y have been located at Naples. lB

Ricotti Prina's more recer' ~udy of the Sicilian coinage has supple­mented but not altered Laffranchi's findings about the series and sequences of imperial coins of this period ;19 but he has also been able to distinguish a series of coins of a particular type as the product of a mint established on Sardinia, probably at Cagliari, in the territory of the Exarchate of Africa,2°The first issues of this new mint, which have a fabric similar to the thick Carthaginian one, appeared during Justinian II's first reign, when Carthage was already threatened by Arab raids and attacks (PLATE I, II).

Integrating these additions to the previous arrangements of the mints, we find that we can obtain the following picture of the numis-

17 A South Italian semis is published by Laffranchi, lac. cit., p. 12, PI. YIII. 29-30, Othen\ise, only a group of li.-solidus weight gold pieces are known. now attributed to the Sardinian mint: d. Ricotti Prina, loc, cit" p. 57, n. I,

discussing Tolstoi, op. cit. YIlI, p. 894, II, and Ratto, Sales Catalogue, Xo_ 1711. Ratto Xo. 1710, now at Dumbarton Oaks, is another example.

Silver of this type is unknown. Bronze: RllC II, pp. 335-6, 8-10 (Constantinople); Tolstoi, op. cit. YIlI,

pp. 895-6, 13-17; Laffranchi, lac, cit., p. 9, PI. II, 57-8 (Constantinople); p. II, PI. YI, 37-8 (Rome, erroneously identified in the text); and Ricotti Prina, loco cit., p. 46, 173 (Syracuse). 18 Cf. the bronze coins of XX nummia, Toistoi, op. cit. YIII, p. 857. 19 Op. cit, 2Il Ibid., p, 57, n. I, as detailed in the notes above.

Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

matic activity of the two reigns of Justinian II, according to the known gold coins :21

CONSTANTINOPLE: Type I-A, I, II, III, IV. CARTHAGE: Type I-A, 1.

SARDINIA: Type I-A, I, II, III, and IV-B. RAVENNA: Type I, IV-B. ROME: Type I-A, I, III, IV, IV-B. SOUTH ITALY: Type I, III, IV-B. SYRACUSE: Type 1.

The scheme of arrangement which we have followed in numbering :md pr~senting the co~n issues of Justinian II is, with a few exceptions 1ll detail, the conventIonal order used in previous numismatic studies, based on a few self-evident facts. It may be well at this point in our study, to indic~te that, on the other hand, thi~ arrangement is es­sentIally an ~bItrary one. These are the points on which it is based: ~ype I-:A lS clearly the e~rliest struck, both because its types are

denved directly from ?reVIOUS numismatic issues, and because it portrays the emperor III beardless boyhood. Type I for th

f II - . , e same reasons, 0 ows Immediately after.

Types IV and IV-B, on the other hand, are plainly late-they must date from the second reign, when Justinian's infant son Tiberius had been named Augustus.22 On the other hand th ld t h b . , ey wou appear o a.ve een Issued mor~ or less simultaneously, Type IV at Con-

stantlllople and Rome, IV-B elsewhere in the Hr ,t .' h "h . al f' ne" ,\\It L e bronze eqmv ent 0 IV - B servlllg at the capital Th', I

'. . b eaves only Types II and III to be placed III theIr relative chronoloGic I ," do that by virtue of the sinIilarity of Types III t> ~ It°:>ltI.ons; we may not requiring the assumption of an absolute ch::n 1 ,,:,hlCh, although of Type II over Type III mak . 1 0 ogIcal precedence

, es It c ear that the m h 1 f these types did tend in the direction II-III IV h orp 0 ogy o.

. - rat er than III II I,r Another observatIOn points t th . - - . o e same conclUSIOn' h I

ready remarked that on Types II, III and IV it " .' we ave ~-, b Chnst who occupIes

21 Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. 16--, goes t 'd th f h T ,0 ConSl erable I th eory set art by olstoi, op. cit. VIII pp 8 eng to refute the III and IV, that is those ,,,ith the curlY-bea 'd 4

d2

C-3

h, .tha.t all our coins of T,-nPs

." Th' I . r e nst-una - r-ongm. ere IS amp e eVldence that only th ge, Were of \Vestern these types 'were struck at \Vestern mint e ~aller proportion of coins of Constantinopolitan style; cf. Laffranchi 0:' ~ e the bUlk are of definitelv 22 Cf. abo\"e, p. 15. ' . cz "' esp. Pp. 7-1 5. .

Coins of Justinian II 27

the obverses of the coins, while the emperor is on the reverses.23 This is something quite unprecedented in the imperial numismatic icono­graphy, for which there is no parallel in earlier issues of either Chris­tian or pagan emperors; the obverse, the side of greatest honor, had always been reserved for the imperial image of highest rank. This resignation of the obverse by the emperor to Christ is most clearly seen, however, on Type II, where the inclusion of the mint-mark seals confirmation of the change of position. The design of Types III and IV make it more difficult to include a mint-mark and, in fact, the mint­mark is dropped entirely on these coins. (The question arises as to which consideration came first: was the mint-mark omitted because the design left no place for it, or was a design chosen which left no room for the mint-mark?)

In any case, the fact that the emperor or emperors still occupy the reverse on Types III and IV can be determined by comparing the fractional gold, on which the base of the cross potent held by the rulers changes to follow the coin's denomination. This, however, is an indication seen most clearly only when a variety of gold pieces is at hand, not when the coins are examined one at a time; hence a less obvious one. On post-Iconoclastic coins, too, where the image of Christ became a common type, there is even less of an obvious indica­tion of whether the emperor or the Christ-image occupies the obverse; but when the scyphate series begins, it is to be seen that Christ always occupies the anvil die, which more or less by definition is considered that of the obverse. 24

23 Grabar, in his description of these coins of Justinian II, L'iconoclasme, pp. 16-7 and elsewhere, follows his own precedent from L'empereur, pp. 19-20, in mistaking obverse and reverse-a mistake common, for that matter, to most publications of these coins. Judging by inconsistencies within L'icollo­clasme itself, however-po 16, Christ on "revers;" p. 17, Christ on "avers;" p. 220, Justinian II on "revers," etc.-the author is merely unaware of the significant numismatic and symbolic distinction between obverse and reverse on the imperial coins. 2' As Prof. Bellinger has pointed out, this is true of the entire scyphate series with the exception of one type struck by Romanus IY, which appears to be a special case in that Christ does not occupy the die by himself: B),Ie II, P!. LXI, 12.

TYPES OF THE EMPEROR

Bellinger has remarked that the coins of Justinian II show a far higher level of technical and artistic proficiency than those of his immediate predecessors,! an observation which has been echoed by Kitzinger, who would place the beginning of the change with the last issues of Constantine IV. 2 A far more plastic conception of the portrait­image, a general rejection of the conventionalized types which had become so routi~e in the seventh century, in favor of extremely deli­cate workmanshIp (drapery details, delineation of eyes, etc.) which re­~re~ent.ed a new effort ~t c~nvincing realism of imagery; all these are mdicahons of a .new policy m the Constantinople mint. This new style appears to contmue through the first reign of Justinian II and that of Leontius (leading to the distinction in style which made the misat­tributed issues of the latter ruler so conspicuous when displayed a~~n~ t~e flatter, more schematized types of Leo III) and even with dimIms~mg force through the second reign and beyond, a full generatIOn from the starting date around or before 685.

?ne. of the result~ of t~s apparent .interest in the quality of the com die~, whatever Its ~tlffiate ca~se, IS a strong sense of portraiture t~ b~ gamed from perusmg these coms, especially the solidi. \Vhat the SIgnificance of the renewed realism of the coin images may h b

1 b d . ave een, can on y e etermmed after a complete examination f all th 1" I dOe types nvo ve .

One type of emperor-portrait is common to three of fi . . our ve COIn

types: the figure wearmg the divitision and hI . c amys, cro\\'11ed and

holding one form or another of the globus cruc"~ , I A d I (P I Iger, b seen on Types - an LATE ,1-2), where Justinian II a ears alone .

on T)"pes IV and IV-B (PLATE I, I"\-IJ) wherPPh h _ h' and ag~ b '- 'nf " ."::J, e e s are::. onors \'llth

_1::. I ant son TIbenus, who IS costumed ide t' all . . n IC y. In descnbmg Type I, Wroth used the te "

h rms mantle and robe" for t e emperor's garments, and remarked3 that h f ere or the first time he

1 Cf. above, p. 19, ll. 3. 2 In a lecture delivered at the Dumbarton Oak S . 3 B}I,IC II, p. 330, ll. 2. symPOSIum, I957.

28

Types of the Emperor 29

could positively describe an emperor as wearing this form of non­military dress; he confessed, however, that in its general lines the <costume seems to be found on earlier issues, as far back as Heraclius. It is there, in point of fact, that a careful examination of the coin types will indicate that the real introduction of this civil costume must be placed.

Let us review for a moment the development of Byzantine coin types leading up to this change. The restriction of themes on the imperial coinage between the fourth and the sixth centuries, which Grabar has so trenchantly described,4 brought about, by the time of the accession of Justinian I, a situation wherein the variety of coin types in use had become extremely limited indeed. The solidi bore a three-quarter facing bust portrait of the emperor, a type which had Driginated under Constantius II in the fourth century (PLATE II, 16); the ruler appears clad in armor, wearing a helmet, carrying a spear Dver his right shoulder, and bearing a decorated shield before his left Dne. The fractional gold issues had profile portraits, as did the silver and bronze coins; it was on the last-named metal that the only recent modification had been effected, under Anastasius I, when a new denominational system was established, based upon the follis of 40 nurnmia, whereby each denomination of bronze coin was identified by means of capital letters on the reverse, denoting the value in Greek or Latin numerals. 5

Beginning with the year 538-9, however, Justinian I introduced new types, featuring full-face portraits of the emperor, still wearing the cuirass, but now with a crown instead of a helmet, and holding in his right hand the globus cruciger (PLATE II, 17).6 This went into effect in all metals, although the fractional gold, on which it was difficult to attempt the frontal bust, tended to continue to represent the monarch in profile as before.

On the bronze, a system of dating was introduced at the same time as the new type (enabling us to be so precise about the exact time of the innovation), by which the reverses were numbered according to the emperor's regnal year. This makes it possible to date the bronze coins of Justinian I and of many of his successors, right dm.'ln to

4 L'empereur, p. 159. 5 BillC I, PI. I-IV, etc. <I Ibid. I, PI. IV, II-2; PI. V, 4-5; etc.

30 Numismatic Iconography oj Justinian II

Justinian II.7 The practice can be linked directly to a Xovella of 31 August, 537 A. D., which ordered the abandonment of the old custom of dating by post-consulate, and its replacement by the use of the Indiction Year or of the regnal year of the current ruler.8

These new types of Justinian I continued to dominate Byzantine coinages, with certain exceptions to be discussed later, until the reign of Heraclius. That emperor, in his earlier issues, after employing at first the very dies of Phocas,9 continued the frontal type, showing armor worn under a paludamentum thrown across the shoulders (PLATE. II , 1~).10 Sta:ting about 613-I4, however, Heraclius began to appear III a slightly dIfferent costume, using almost the same elements but in which no trace of armor is visible (PLATE II, 19).11 This w~ believe, is the true beginning of the mantle-and-robe, or more pro~erly chlamys-and-divitision type.

The costume may be seen in full on some later coins of Heraclius where the chlamys falls full to the wearer's ankles 12 and it wa~ employed by his son and successor, Constans II.l3 Con~tantine IV on the other hand, drop~:d this type, and went all the way back to 'the th:ee-quarter-fac~ milItary portrait which had prevailed from the reIgn of Constau.tlUs II to that of Justinian I, and which may have se~med appropnate to the warlike preoccupations of his troubled reIgn (PLATE II, 20); he also employed some of the full-f t _

h · h " . . . . ace ype" w IC ongmated With Jushrnan I, Just as he issued a serie- of b

. b . . " ronze COInS compara Ie III SIZe and weight only to those of th t 14 . . . a emperor.

What Jushrnan II did on his first coins then was t . h . , , 0 reVIve t e

types of his grandfather, Constans II; When he sought t _ . him If . h . 0 a~soclate

se WIt hIS own son, during his second reign h d h , e use t e Same

7 Cf. above, p. 22, n. 9. S Nov. XLVII, Corpus iuris civilis, ed. R. Schoell and \ pp. 283-7. Although Justinian I dated his coin b ~. Kroll, vol. II, practice was followed by most of his successors s~ y. regnal. years, and his coin series dated by Indiction years have recenti bme m~ere~tmg examples of son: "Dated solidi of Maurice, Phocas, and Her1cli:~' INent~ed by P. Grier­VI, 10, 1950, pp. 49-70, PI. III-IV. ' um~smat~c Chronicle 9 RUG I, PI. XXIII, I. 10 Ibid. I, Pl XXIII, 2-3. 11 Ibid. I, PI. XXIII, 4-9, etc. 12 Ibid. I, PI. XXIII, IG-rz, etc. 13 Ibid. I, PI. XXX, 12-15, etc. 14 Ibid. II, PI. XXXVI, II-I2; XXXvJ:I 9 6' X

' ,10, I ,~XXVIII, 8, etc.

Types oj the Emperor 3I

costume and a directly related type to convey the sense of the co­regency of the hvo Augusti, father and son.

If the designs of Justinian II's coin Types IV and IV-B present a certain semblance of originality, this is iconographically speaking more apparent than real. The idea of co-rulers clasping a symbol of power simultaneously to indicate their joint imperium was common on coin types from the third to the fifth century; the placing of family busts on coin reverses, on the other hand, was a favorite practice of the earlier Heraclians. The particular composition here employed was arrived at, no doubt, for Type IV, where it was neces­sary for the two Augusti to support the cross potent, as a symbol among other things of the coin's value; when the type was carried over to the obverse, on Type IV-B, and the cross potent had the reverse to itself, the composition with the two co-emperors was re­tained without difficulty.

The legends, too, "Dominus Iustinianus Perpetuus Augustus," and "Domini Nostri Iustinianus et Tiberius Perpetui Augusti," are in keeping with the Roman and Byzantine traditions of coin legends, which the Byzantines tended to restrict to the barest essentials of titulature and nomenclature.

Concerning the costume, aside from what evidence we have from coins and other material remains, we can gain considerable informa­tion from the Book of Ceremonies. Despite its late date, in the tenth century, the antiquity and traditionalism of garments such as these make the evidence of this book trustworthy with regard to general significance and applicability.1.

The references to the chlamys, when assembled as Ebersolt has done,16 make it clear that this was the garment of highest dignity in the imperial wardrobe, one of the primary symbols of imperial power. Xot only was it worn on many, indeed on nearly all the great civil and religious festivals of Byzantium, but it was the garment which was placed on the emperor's shoulders at his coronation, at the same

15 References to these garments may be found throughout the text, but Cbap­ter 46 (37) of Book I, specifically concem.ed v .. ith ~he imperial c,?stume, sum­marizes its use in a particularly convement fashlOn: Constantm Porphyro­genete, Le Livre des Ceremonies, ed. A. Vogt, Paris, 1935-40 (hereafter De Cer., ed. Vogt), I, pp. 175-9. 16 J. Ebersolt, Jfilanges d'histoire et d'archiologie byzantines (extract from the Revue de Z'histoire des reZigions LXXVI), Paris, 191 7, pp. 53-{).

32 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

time that the crown was ut h' . deceased emperor on his c~taf~n u~s head; It was worn, too, by the was not, of Course, restricted t t~ : The .use of .the chlamys as such al chlamys was made of 1

0 1 e unpenal.fanuly; while the imperi­

similar mantles in otherPurp

e ~botdh, embrOIdered in gold, there were prescn e material d .

worn by the various rank f . s an colors which were '. s 0 court d10"Tlita' A h nns of Imperial Ch' .",.~ nes. s t e robes of manda-

ma were embrOIde d . th d type, so the chlamys of the B z . re ~1. ragons of different decorated with an ornat 1 Ydantme digrutary was additionally

. . . e co ore tabulum h . tails mdicated both his t t ' w ose embrOIdered de-

The divit' . ~ a us and the occasion of wearing . 1s10n, sometImes equated i B . ..'

anCIent chiton, Was a belted tUnic_liken yzantm~ wntIngs with the the chlamys, which mi ht b garment slIghtly shorter than

d g e worn not onl d un er the sagion Or the tz't ki y un er that cloak, but t . 1 za on as the . umc was worn witho t ' OccaSIOn required. This

u an overgarment t th . moment when the chlam a e coronation until the

ys was placed a th' As regards the crown h .ver e Imperial shoulders.17

,we ave cons1de bl . f ' . .sources about a variety f ra e m ormatIOn III our th 0 crowns used f .

us far at any rate l't h . or vanous occasions·18 but . , as proven 1m 'bl "

han to the visual eviden f . POSS1 e to relate this informa-Th ce 0 the coms a d th

e type of crown Worn by J t' . n 0 er material remains f'l . usmlanIIo hi . . atr y plam filleted circlet sunn t d . n s coms, apparently a

ornament itself topped by a sm~un e III front by a semicircular wi~ Constans II, and is first cle:'~ss, ~ppears to have originated .c~~s (PLATE III, 21).19 Heraclius ( dYh' discemable on that ruler's simil an IS sons h ar crown, but one on which th ,wen shown) Wore a a.cross the front of the circlet, and W~i~~ntral.ornament comes down sIXth century (PLATE II, 18-19).20 The was m Use from at least the Cons tans II, On the other ha d . ~e of crown introduced by th H li n ,remaIned m 1

e erac an Dynasty. It is the onl t use ong after the fall of .~~ t.he Isaurians (wherever detail is X~: of Crown seen on the coins distmct type of specific crown i-' enough to ensure that a Leo. I.v. At that time, a new cr;!e~:~ portrayed) until the reign of senucrrcle at all, but a -un' I ms to be introduced 'th

'" p e cross surma t' ,WI no 17 Ibid un mg the front (PLATE

. , pp. 59-6I. 18 Ibid., pp. 67-9. 11 Bille I, PI. XXX P-r6 ~ Ibid. I, PI. XXIII 4- i< :

, '''OJ, etc.

Types of the Emperor 33

III, 22).21 Both this and the preceding type are seen on coins of the succeeding Iconoclast emperors, but by the reign of Michael IV the simpler crown-with-cross has become the only type used. As mention­ed above, the sources indicate that more than one crown was in use by the Byzantine monarchs, at least in the tenth century; but we are unable to form even a hypothetical opinion as to which one may have been the dominant type, and hence the one represented numismatical­ly, in the seventh and eighth centuries.

The globus, carried in the ruler's hand as a symbol of \vodd domina­tion, was of course of great antiquity in the Roman wodd.22 Already under the Roman Republic, it was held by the goddess Roma, a re­presentation which survived into Christian times.23 In the later Empire, it is seen most frequently surmounted by the Nike, who crowns its holder, as on a medallion of Constantius II (PLATE III, 24),24 and as such it survived through the first century of the Christian Empire. But even during that time the tendency toward ChristiatIiza­tion of the imperial symbols was suggested, as on a coin of the ephem­eral usurper Nepotianus, in 350, where the globus is shown sur­mounted by the Chi-Rho monogram. 25 It does not appear to have received the cross, however, until the reign of Theodosius II (PLATE

III, 23),26 at a time when the cross-sceptre also makes its first numis­matic appearance on the ~ame series,27 and when the cross as a sym­bol took on great imparlance in the imperial coinage, as apparently in the general context of religious art as a whole. As regards the globus cruciger, however, it became an integral element of the impe­rial-portrait coin type on the new issues of Justinian I, and as such it is used in Type I of Justinian II, a "normal" attribute of the Byzan­tine ruler.

The large cross potent on steps, which is used on the reverse of the solidi of Type I (and, on globus or without base, on the fractional gold of the series), can also be traced as a type to the coins of Theodo-21 Ibid. II, PI. XLV, 20-2I. 22 Cf. the study by A. Alibldi, in "Insignien und Tracht der Rbmischen Kaiser," Rom. lVIitt. L, 1935, pp. II7-20. 23 Cf. Tolstoi, (fp. cit. I, Pi. I, 1, etc . 24 Alibldi, loc. cit., PI. 10, 6. 25 H. Cohen, Description historique des monnaies jrappees SOZtS l' Empire roma·in VIII, Paris, 1892, p. 2, 2: a solidus in the Vatican ::\Iuseum. 26 Tolstoi, op. cit. I, Plo 5, 13, etc. 27 Ibid. I, PI. 5, 32-6, etc.

34 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

sius II,28 where for the first t' standiug figure of Vict . une ~ew reverse type is introduced, the tall broad-armed Latin'ory m pro e to the left, holding before her a

, cross wh tr' thing like pearls (PLATE III 2 290se ou me. IS decorated with some-MVLT XXX hi . ' 5)· Onthebasisofthelegend YOTXX

,t s ISsue may be link d t th' ' sius II, while the combinat' f' e, 0 e vicennalia of Theodo-

IOn 0 unpenal person ' h the type was struck (obverses of Theod' ~ges, In w ose name sister Pulcheria his uncle H . OSlUS II, hIS WIfe Eudocia, his

. ' ononus the Weste . aunt PlaCIdia) makes it possible t d . . rn e~peror, and hIS 423 A. D.30 0 ate It qUite precIsely to the year

This adaptation of the famili' '. trophy in symbol of victory ar ~penalimage of Nike planting a vicennalia of Theodosius II ~as In ~oduced on the coinage of the certainly was the conclusion °fr goo reason: the occasion almost b . f d 0 peace the precedi ne an successful war against the' S . ng year, after a

caused in the first place b reli' assa~an ruler Bahram V, 28 Cf. A. Frolow, "Numismati y b gIou~ persecutions against Christian )}temorial Louis Petit, Bucare~u~9 ~zantme et archeologie des lieu x saints" weaknesses, which are pointed' oui b PPC 78-94. ~~olow's thesis has certain but we should hesitate to go so f Y rabar, L uonoclasme p 28 n 2' between these issues and Theod ,arIas Grabar in rejecting the ~o ' t', ' Cros It' t OSlUS 1's other ti" nnec IOn

s. IS 00 ~uch of a coincidence f ' ac Vlties concerning the True and on the coms of the reignin or a Jewelled cross to appear at Gol th Grabar may be correct in h b g ~o~arch, at almost the identic go a, the :ite of the Crucifixion; b~~s:mg a prior erection by Const~=;Ie~~ thesIs about the work of Theod ' ould not destroy the validity f F I '

Accepting th f OSIUS II. 0 ro ow s of . ' ere ore, the basic point mad b

expandmg upon the subject of thi ,e y Frolow, we take th l"b tv few details about the's partIcular issue in e 1 er . 29 Tolstoi, op. cit. I p~5tte2r which are generally Overl~keodrder to amplify a ao Cf h ',4 -7· . . t e remarkable but 10 . Coins of the Two Eu'd ' ng-overlooked, article by J F sius, Marcian and Leoo~a~t Eud~ia, Placidia, and Ro' ',W. de Salis, "The I86 ' "ruck III Italy" N ' , nona, and of Theodo-

7"PP· 203-I5· This essav should ha ~ um~smat~c Chronicle N S "II question of Eudocia vs Eud' ve settled once and f ' ',' ' , since de Salis inted' OJaa on the coins of th ' or all tIme the of his wife Aeli~EudoCi~~~~~:' !i: latte~ struck co~:e~~ ~~ T~eodosius II, the 'Western emperor and struck t,of ~ daughter Eudoxia r( III the name Who was apparently called t C COIll~ III the West as Li ' , ,who n:'-arrled mother, Aelia Eudoxia I ~ ~nstantinoPle by the sam ClTIla EudOXIa, but

Now that the story ha 'bee e 0 Arcadius. e name as her grand-d's n told again 'th

an mgenuity, by A. A. Eo " ' ~ full credit to d S " " of the Fifth Century" A yce, EudOXIa, Eudocia E d ~ alis bnlhance p~. I31-.42, we ma; ho;:r~an Numi~m,:tic SOCiety Mu:e oXIa:. Dated Solidi will not be lost sight of again at the dIstinctions between u~ Notes VI, 19~4,

• ese three ladles

Types of the Emperor 35

residents of the Persian domain. In the peace treaty, Theodosius II won new assurances of toleration of the Christian faith from the Persians, and his victory was celebrated as a major triumph for the Empire and for the Faith,31

For the particular fonn taken by the cross on this coin type, another contemporary event furnishes the clue, Only two years earlier, in 420-1,32 Theodosius II had sent money to Jerusalem to endow the erection of a great jewelled cross on Golgotha, on the site of the crucifixion,33 This great ornamented cross must have been the inspiration for the type placed in the hand of the Nike on the coins of the vicennalia, as it is for succeeding representations of the cross as the instrument of Christian imperial victory.

The type was modified by succeeding rulers, as the cross might or might not be shown with jewelled edges, and as the Nike was turned full-face, and then was transfonned into a true Angel (wearing mas­culine rather than feminine gannents) on the coins of Justin I, from about 519 A. D, (PLATE III, 26),34 Finally, on the coins of Tiberius II, the supporting figure was dropped entirely,3S and the cross on steps became the standard reverse type of the solidi, as seen on the first issues of Justinian II, On the other hand, as Frolow has shown, on his coins of Type II Justinian II actually reverts to the earlier type, and himself replaces the Nike who originally supported the .rictorious cross.36

On Types II and III, of course, the emperor is wearing a different variety of imperial costume, characterized by the loros, the broad

31 Theoph., p. 87, etc.; but the fullest Greek account is in Socrates, H istoria Ecclesiastica VII, 18-21 (Migne, P. G. LXVII, cols, 773-84). To obtain a glimpse of the other side of the picture, d. A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, Copenhagen, 1944, pp. 269-81. J. Kollwitz, Ostromische Plastik der Theodosianischen Zeit, Berlin, 1941, is an able general survey of the arts of this period. 32 Theoph., pp, 86-7. 33 Cf. Frolow, loc, cit. 34 Cf, A. A. Vasiliev, Justin the First, Cambridge, 1950, pp. 418-26. 35 Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp, 27-8, suggests that a Constantiuian precedent influenced the action of Tiberius II in establishing this type, and that there may have been a Constantinian monument in Constantinople itself which was the prototype. He also rejects Frolow's emphasis on the continuity of types of the cross on coin reverses, feeling that this was much more of an original departure. 36 Frolow, loco cit., p. 92.

36 Numismatic Iconography of jztstinian II

embroidered and bejewelled scarf . upper part of the body 'th't WhICh was worn wound about the (PLATE I, 5-7) Contemp' WI Ids ends falling almost to the feet

. orary ocumentatio thO sparse, but its place in th B' n on IS costume is by the use of the invalu:bl/~::~n~f c~remOni~l can be ascertained cularly by consultation of th h eremomes, and most parti­that chapter we find th 1 e c ap~er on the imperial regalia.

37 In

. ' e oros menhoned with f occasIon, Easter Sunda h re erence to only one e mos of the Nineteen Ak b" 1lll1nary ceremonies in th Trikl' y, wen, after the pre!" .

and the "white or red crown . ~u litOl, th.e emperor put on the loros in his left hand and th ,a xik~ 1 p. e~ses hIm," while taking a sceptre

, e ane akia hi . proceeded to the mitatori th. m s nght. In this costume he Ch h on, e Imperial r b' urc ; but he removed the 1 . 0 mg room at the Great participating in the religi oros I~ favor of the chlamys before resumed the loros for th OUSt ceremomals there. After communion he

. e re urn to the Pala S· ' partIcular occasion that Const t' ceo 0 Important was this papers an additional essay on t~n ~e .Porphyrogenitus left among his Chapter 4

0, is entitled "Wh . ~ SIgnificance of the costume: Book II

th .. ,y ItIS that on Ea t S ' e magrstn, the proconsuls and the .. s er unday the emperor,

the costume is described as s b p~~clans wear the loros."38 Here resurrection of Christ. th 1 ym 0 mg both the death and the . -h' ' e oros, wound ab t h mg-::. eet, IS yet studded with ou t e body like a wind-sceptre bespeaks Christ's . t gems and embroidered with gold' the the anexikakia, the roll, w:~;~ i~v~; death by means of the c~oss; our mortal bodies, embraced by the B ot~ and ?lied with dust, recalls

Another analogy follo _ h ?o of LIfe. . ws, owever- 1 di tlOn we find a second explanat' . rome ately after this descrip-paraphernalia are, essentiall t~on, namely, that the costume and they are borne by the patricr _ oShe of the ancient consuls of Rome' fo t' ans, t en as a r . d ' rmer Imes, when men becam k' '_ emm er of the glories of o~Y the privileges, but the hea e mg::. fo~ ~ year, and assumed not hon of the state. This is a cIu ~ .responslbilities of the administra­

e, 0 vIOusly: even' th 37 Cf b . m e tenth century it

38 • a O\ie, p. 3 1 , n. IS· D~ Cer., ed. de Reiske, Bonn 18

momal Book of Constantine P 29, pp. 637-9. Cf J B B ' LXXXYI, 19

07 P ~ ,_. Th' orphyrogennetos" Engl'· h' H~ry, 'The Cere-

_ _ ' • --:J. IS se~tion "ha ' lS lstorical R -ongm, and the introducto _ ~ _ 5 no special marks ~v:ew Ceremo-niis. It mu-t be I ftry sentence 1S unlike the 1

0f ConstantIDlan _ "e open 'vheth - genera style of th D

15 an extract from some o'd er 1t was compiled b C e e , er work." y onstantine or

Types of the Emperor

was remembered that this costume, of which the loros was the most characteristic feature, was that of the Roman consuls. In the history of the consulate under the Byzantine emperors, and in the history of the consular dress, may lie some of the answers we seek. Let us first see of what the costume consisted at the apogee of its splendor.

Study of the most significant of the monuments related to the consular office, that is, the consular diptychs, has revealed most of the information necessary to an understanding of the consular cos­tume.

39 The basic elements of the dress were as follows: the under­

most garment was a long tunic with full sleeves. Over this was worn a shorter, very full and sleeveless colobium, another variety of tunic which appears to have entered the consular regalia in the course of the third century A. D.; outermost was the consular toga, which might be, according to the importance of the occasion, either the plain white toga of every-day wear, or the purple toga which bears the name trabea, and which in its highest grades was of gold, em­broidered with pearls and precious stones. Thi c; costume was com­pleted by the ceremonial boots, or calcei, and the insignia of office, most particularly the mappa and the sceptre (PLATE IV, 29)·40

The simple trabea costume, with a purple trabea rather than the embroidered one, was worn by the Viri consulares, the men of con­sular rank; the consuls themselves during their term of office wore what is called, significantly, the triumphal costume, with the tunic purple and bordered with gold, the colobium also purple, and the trabea, which developed during the history of the Empire into the form of a wide scarf decorated \vith gold rosettes. It was John Lydus, of our sources, who in the sixth century first applied the Greek word,

loros, to the trabea:n In origin, all these garments had their antecedents in Roman Re-

publican usage, when they had vague associations with still earlier traditions of the monarchy. The basic elements of the costume, which was essentially that of the Triumphator, were the tunica palrnata42 worn underneath the toga picta;43 these were the garments worn by

39 R. Delbrlick Die Consulardiptychen lind VeY'll:iindte Denkmiiler

, Berlin, 192

9.

~ Ibid., Text, pp. 43-4' 41 Ibid., Text, pp. 53-4' . . -, . T 42 Cf. Daremberg & Saglio, Dictiollna~re des antzqmtes grecques et romames "\ ,

pp. 539-40 : "Tunica," by G. Blum. 4a Ibid. V, p. 349: "Toga," by F. Courby.

38 NumismaHc Iconography of Justinian II the statue of Jupiter Capitoli arms of Rome.44 The em Anus, who bestowed victory upon the his own regular costum Pfero

r ugustus made the toga picta a part of

e or ceremonial . consular costumes graduan I OccasIOns; the triumphal and

. t Yost whateve di' . eXiS ed between them prior to this t' r stInChons may have OUr era were to all intents and u nne, ~nd ~y the second century of of course, the right to . p rp?ses IdentIcal ;45 at the same time

. receIve a tnumph h db' prerogatIve of the emp a ecome the exclusive t . erors, so that the numphal costume for any th re Was no such thing as a

fourth century the trab 0 er member of the state. During the f 'ea or toga . t orm of scarf, as We see it in re pIC .a assumed its final, narrow

The sceptre too Was link d presentatIOns of the loros 46

consular costume but th e to this triumphal icono~aphy of the ' ere Was one tt'b

mappa. The mappa was held' th a n ute which Was not: the ov hi h In e consul' . h h er.w c he presided on th firs s ng t and at the games and It Was thrown down as tl: . t of January, his inauguration day The first m~ppae POrtrayed On ~~:~: to cO~ence the perfonnance~ ~nc~ of a limp cloth, like the na k .nsular diptychs have the appear­. ut I~ the sixth century the ma P Ins fo: which they were named; InsertIOn of a roll of pape . ~~a was gIVen added firmness by the PO~hyrogenitus in the B~k m~I Ce the c~oth, as described by the receIved the Greek 0 eremomes 47 This t f t' . name akakia wh . ype 0 mappa Ine anexikakia is direct.48 ,ence the parentage of the Byzan-

The fact that in its orifFin th 1· ,,~.s e map on~ as It Was an attribute of th pa was, and always remained so

:nsnnple instrument of the prod:c con~u1ar office properly speaking, the texts. ACcording to Cas . ~r 0 the spectacles, is clear from

Nero, who one day delayed th SIO orus, it dates from the time of tabl~ for a particularly fine IU:~~~ of the games by staying late at stadi~m became unruly at waitin ~ 'Vhen the crowd in the nearby ?ap~ out the window of the dinin g 0 long, the emperor threw his mgs nnght begin without him 49 D g-~all, as a signal that the proceed­: ~~ ~r, p. 490: "Triumphus" ~ ResPIte the patness of the story and 46 el ruck, op. cit., Text 'Y. Gaguat. ' ,_ F. Courby in Darembe~ ~ 54· . , Cf. above n. 38 ,., Sag-lio, op. cit. V p ~ Delb ' . , . 352 ruck, op. cit., Text . 40 Cassiodari Senatoris T7' ~p. 62-3.

t' . . • anae III an .zqulsslmi XII, Berlin, 18 ' 51, ed. Th. MOmmse lation to the Hippodrome in;4, p. 106. The tOPOltraph j M. G. H., auc/{)res

orne WOuld not rnak~ thi y 0 th: Palatine in re­s feat an unpractical one.

Types of the Emperor 39 the skepticism modern students have shown toward it, there is no evidence that the word, or the use of the napkin-mappa at the games, antedates the reign of Nero. 50

The consulate, however, underwent a major alteration in the course of the sixth century-a change which some commentators have con­sidered to mark the very end of the consulate itself. 51 What had hap­pened was that by the time of Justinian I the consulate had be­come not only a purely fonnal dignity, bestowing on its bearer merely the rights to give certain games, notably those of the first of January, when he was also privileged to free slaves,52 and the right to bestow private and public gifts in honor of his appointment; but these very honors had become an almost intolerable burden for any private citizen, a burden of which the emperor could not but be fully sensible.

Early in the sixth century the last of the consuls retired in Rome; at Constantinople, after certain lapses of appointment, the naming of consuls ceased entirely in 54I. This did not mean, however, that the ·office itself then ceased to exist; instead, there merely ceased to be private holders of the office. At the same time, there remained numerous bearers of the title ex-consul, which for centuries had been an honorific bestowed generously upon men who had never held the eponymic consulate itself, as well as upon those who had; from 541, this title became more common than ever.53

After this time, the consulate proper became purely ~n imperial office, which the emperor assumed more or less automatlcall~ upon commencing his reign; as such, its duties were amalgamated WIth the others embodied in the imperial responsibilities, to such an extent that the consulate shortly became just another title to be cited in a full list of the imperial dignities, without any distinction of its fun:­tions whatsoever. Justin II was the first emperor to celebrate this

50 Cf. Daremberg & Saglio, op. cit. III!!? I5,?3: ":Mappa/' by E;.Pottier. 51 As J. B. Bnry, The Imperial Admzmstratwe System tn the Joimth Century,

London, I9II, pp. 25-6· '" G BI h F . 52 Daremberg & Saglio, op. cit. I, pp. 1466-81: 'Consul, by . oc. reemg la · ti - doubtless another vestige of the prerogatives of the s ves, 1. e., cap ves, was

triurnphator. . 53 The most recent study of the later history of the consular

l offi.ce and titthles

t in th B tin E . e with a resume of previous scholar y opIll1on, IS a e yzan e mprr, 'rust· d 1 t' l"po -of Chr.Conrtois, "ExconsuL Observations sur 1 OIre U consn a a e que

.byzantine," Byzantion XIX, 1949, pp. 37-58.

40 N~tmismatic Iconography oj j'ltst£nian II

f~rm of consulate, in 566 ;54 it was at this time '. diadem was incorporated into th I . ~hat the lillpenal

I . e consu ar regalIa. 05 t IS, furthermore, at this tinIe that th

on the inIperial coinage . ifi I e consular costume reappears consulate had become e~cSII~ clant y. just at the moment that the

USIve y an lillperial offi It fi rence was in the second f . , ceo s rst OCCur-(PLATE III 27) ·56 the nyet

ar 0 Justm II s successor, Tiberius II

" ex emperor Ma . T"b' . various periods and mints d . hi '. Unce 1 enus, Issued at

. unng s reIgn "co I" t . ze,57 silver 58 and gold 59 Ph . nsu ar ypes m bron-of this kind, on which for t~asfitOtO ~ted both solidi60 and bronzes61

t d e rs tune the consul Oppe by a cross, instead of b th' . ar sceptre appears 111,28). Y e lll1penal Roman eagle (PLATE

Byzantine coins bear the inI f last tinIe in the reign of H li~ge 0 the emperor as consul for the I erac us on a Se . . ong been uncertainty but h' h h nes Over whIch there had

dated by Grierson 62 Th w IC as now been satisfactorily eluci-C . e same emperor raised h' ld

onstantine to consular nk IS e est Son, Heraclius , ra on the oc . f'

63I, after the successful concl' f caSlOn 0 his own triumph in we hear very little of the c lusion 0 the Persian Wars;63 thereafter

onsu ar office, although b th C . 54 Corippus, De laudibus Iustini . . 0 onstantme IV ;rYb~d ~~:lin, 1879, pp. 147-56. mmoYlS IV, ed. Partsch, M. G. H., auct. ant. 56 • , 243, ed. Partsch loc cit

After a brief issue of folIe' d '. ., p. 153· . I' s urrngth ." IUS I s 40 ·nummia pieces, and m ef ~tIal year of his reign, all of Tiber-consular type: BMC I PI X any 0 his other bronze co' , ~ssue of, gold of the c~nS~larIV, 5-6;,P.1s. ~V & XVI, passim.~~e:ee:: :r~;~: ~t;:7:.t~g;~c~;:iion: "VIvzrF;t~:~~~~~e~ ~lthe obverse legend the C ' ,. , 8, PI. XVIII & . , . XIII, 20.

YZICUS and Nicomedia m' ,2 4, are coins of the C ' Antioch. For the coins of ~;nts,. respectively; PI. XVIII onstant~ople, b G'· -iaunce and hi ' 7-9, are corns of _ y nerson cIted above n 8 s successors cf. the val bl rt' 1 58 BJl!lC I, PI. XVIII I~ . • 'ua e a IC e 59 Ibid. I PI XVII' -, from Carthage.

, . - , I, struck at Co t . ;n~h;o~e,d apnd :vearing consular dress ns antinople, representing the emperor

o SOl, Oc • CIt. V, PI. 42 26- . U BMC I, PIs. XX-XXII'p ~. 62 P G . " ' aSSlm. . nerson, The consul ' Phocas of 608-61 "V ,ar Cornage of 'Heracr ' Previous attempt O't " ulmzsrnatic Chronicle VI 10 lUS _ and the revolt against b · s 0 so ve the probl " 19)0, pp. 71-93 PIs V VI

Y Gnerson, may be found' B em, now disposed of with 'd' . -, . pp 66·7 h h rn AlC I pp eVl ent finality 63 iv· --t' were t e earlier literature ' tho 23 I -7, and Toistoi op cit VI

-. lceP. ". pp. 22-3. Heraclius Con t on tin e ?ubject is reviewed: . . , an rnscnption datmg from 6. I' S an e IS also mentioned . Romae saeculo VIIo t" . 4 . ]. B. de Rossi In ' , as consul ill

an IqulOres I, Rome 18-7 'xl }C~2Ptlones christianae urbis , :>, vI-hv.

Types of the Emperor 41

and Justinian II occasionally dated their acts by consular as well as regnal years, notwithstanding the fact that the two were identical.64

At the same time, as we have remarked, during the seventh century the practice of creating honorary consuls, called ex-consuls or & .. 0 \m-(i-;'W'I, became more and more common, as the lead seals of the period, as well as our literary sources, attest. 65 During this time, the loros costume, which pertained to the consular functions, became more general in its application to other dignities, as we may find in the account of the procession of Heraclius and his family to the church of S. Sophia on the Kalends of January (at the time of the old consular inaugurations), recorded in the Book of Ceremonies: the ex-prefects, another honorary class, wore the loros on that occasion, after the fashion of the consuls, as the author expresses it.66

During the 680's, however, it has been noted that the title of ex­consul ceases to occur on the lead seals, and seems to have fallen rapidly into disuse.67 On the other hand, in the following century the title of consul itself reappears as an official rank, albeit not a very distinguished one, in the senatorial class. This seems to have been not so much a continuation of the old ex-consular office, as a new position in the court hierarchy, which revived the title, but not the office or status, of the old magistracy.68

The loros, on the other hand, far from being reserved for this class, became a ceremonial garment for several of the highest classes of the nobility, as a number of passages in the Book of Ceremonies make clear. We have already cited the parts of Chapters 46 (37) of Book I, and 40 of Book II, which indicate that the only occasion on which the emperor regularly wore the loros was at Easter. 69 This is borne out by the description of the ceremonials of Easter, in Book.I, ~ha~ter. I,70 where we find the emperor putting on the loros and takmg m ~ ~g~t hand the akakia, in his left the cross-sceptre.71 At the same tlffie It IS

clear that, just as in earlier centuries, there were different types of

64 Cf. Mansi, op. cit. XI, cols. 209 & 738. 65 Cf. Courtois, op. cit., pp. 52f. 66 De Cer. II, 28, ed. de Reiske, p. 629· 67 Courtois, loco cit. .. ' 68 Ibid., pp. 57 f.; cpo Bury, Imperial Admtmstratzve System, pp. 2Sf. 69 Cf. above, p. 36. 70 Ed. Vogt I, pp. 17-20. 71 Ibid. I, p. 20.

42 Numismatic Icorwgraphy of Justinian II

loros to conform to the diff distinction is made betwee:e~ r~nk: entitled to wear them: a clear occasion by the twelve . t: orO! of cloth-of-gold worn on this

· magIS nand p 1 With the emperor,72 and the" olde " roc~nsu s who were to dine nitaries to whom they w g n. 10r01 worn by the lesser dig-

Th ere appropnate.73

e loros appears twice more in the B the special garment of the" t" ook of Ceremonies: once as

b' pa ncran of the girdl ."74 d . worn y vanous dignitaries of th .e, an agaIn, as Magnaura in 94

6 A D 75 Th e court at a specIal reception in the

. " ese passages ill t stncted character of th f us rate very well the re-« .' e use 0 the costum . th patncian of the girdle" f " e m e tenth century: The seems to have been bes't ow a demmm~ rank of the very highest degree . . e especIally f ' unpenal family who we t . upon emale members of the

n1 k re no entitled to th k

o y nown bearer of the t'tl e ran of Augusta; the Theophilus, Theoctiste fo 1 ~ was. the mother-in-law of the emperor atively limited numbe' fr w o~ It was probably created.

76 The rel-

ill 1 S most elaborate form . ht b c e garment at least . 't r 0 occasIOns on whi h th

tion in Book II, for it is e~;:ssl etworn is illustrated by th~ descrip­were arranged in the Chrys t . t: ated that on that occasion things on Easter Sunday of B : ~c mmm (the site of the loros reception Easter.'7 00 ,Chapter I) just as on the occasion of

Thi s conscious transfer of th secular milieu to a religious 0 e tonsular costume from its former the most sacred of Christi fne: rom the first of January to one of

_ l' an eshvals East . as any Iteral account of the shift ' er, IS undocumented so far O~ the other hand, Ebersolt's ~o~~ct:e reason therefor, is concerned. eVIdence, which the author felt was on t~e 10ros

78 investigates the

conclusion that the cel b t' sufficIently clear to permit th t . e ra Ion of the ul e

a ten~ant distribution of largess which cons ar procession, with the n:eanmg of the Greek word for " c~~ to constitute the literal eIghth century to Eastertim dconsuls~p, was shifted during the th' e, an that this th e weanng of the consular cost was e simple reason for

ume at Easter in th t 72 Ibid I 8 e enth century 73 ." p. I : ,:ou; 8w8e:XiX XP'·H!a'.) , ' ~. Ibid. I, p. I9; ';"au; xpucroij~'" 'PiX'l"tau; Aw;:auc;. • De Cer. I -9 ( 0 • ., ~fu?OU;. 75 Ibid. II '~ .5), ed. vogt II, pp. 6 --6 ~6 ' I,J, ed. de Relske p 3· • Cf. ed. Vogt Comme t .' P·570-82. 77 Ed. de Reiske p _son arre II, pp. 72ft. '-8 E ' .,J • • bersolt, o-p. cit., pp. 64-5.

Types of the Emperor 43

when the consular procession itself had at last been completely for­

gotten, except perhaps by the antiquaries. The following is the evidence for such a conclusion. The first oc-

casion on which the consular ceremony was recorded, after the time of Heraclius, was at the close of the year 718, when, in December, a son and heir was born to the new emperor Leo Ill. This son, who was to be Constantine V, was baptized at the earliest possible moment­before, in fact, the infant had been house-broken; after the close of an embarrassing New Year's episode at the font of the Baptistry of S. Sophia, the consular largess was distributed to the crowd outdoors.

79

The next recorded instance was at Eastertide of 768

, when Con­stantine V himself had produced heirs; he held a multiple coronation ceremony to establish the titles of all his family. On Good Saturday, he crowned his wife Eudocia as Augusta; the following day he made two of his sons Caesars, and a third one Nobilissimus. That same day, as the rulers were proceeding from the Great Palace to S. Sophia,

they {J1tIX~tIXV E1tot"1jO'IXV, as well as distributing largess

.so

Again, in 799, at Easter, the empress Irene, then sole ruler of the Eastern Empire, made a distribution of money after the cust~m of the consuls, as it was expressed.81 Finally, in 8

67, after Basil the

Macedonian had murdered his patron Michael III, he made a consular procession, with the attendant largesses, after the coronation cere­mony. This took place on the twenty-fourth of September.

82

Three of these ceremonials, we see, were in reality attached to occurrences other than simple consular processions: coronations in two cases, a baptism in another. Only the epis?de under !rene seems to indicate that there persisted a regular practIce of holding the con­sular procession regularly without special motivation, and then at Eastef' this would be an ordinary event which would only be men­tioned' by the chroniclers when something u~usual t?ok place, _or when something so unprecedented as a woman s assunung the con::.u-

lar duties took place. . . Even this meager evidence, however, seems to be enough to lll-

dicate at least the outlines of the picture. We have seen that, from the

19 Theoph., p. 400•

80 Ibid., p. 444; Niceph., p. 77· 81 Theoph., p. 474. -6 8! Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bekker, Bonn, 1

838

, p. 2;) •

44 Numis'matic Iconography oj Justinian II

time of Justin II, the emperor counted his consular years as he did his regnal ones; the consular procession thus became associated with the ceremonial of coronation, if not at this time, then shortly there­after. For this reason, when necessity did not dictate the date of a coronation-that is to say on occasions when a living emperor was raising an heir or other relative to a higher dignity-then that cere­monial might be arranged to take place at the same time as the regu­lar consular celebration. This would explain the choice of a date for the coronation of the family of Constantine V, at Easter; if we extend the analogy back another fifty years, we may take it to mean that at the outset of Leo Ill's reign, the consular procession was still held in January. That, then, was the fixed part of the recorded ceremonial, and this would explain the ill-advised rush to baptize the infant princeling, since otherwise it would have been preferable to post­pone matters a full year for the proper occasion to arrive again. It may also be significant that it was after the time of the incident which earned for Constantine V the sobriquet "Copronymus" that the date of the consular procession was changed. All this, however, remains largely conjectural at the present state of our knowledge of the sources.

\Vhat is clear, however, is that the old significance of the processus consularis, namely, victory and triumph, and of the consular costume itself, had not been forgotten in the mid-Byzantine period, but had been translated from the imperial into Christian imagery; this is, fundamentally, why the Book of Ceremonies was right in giving not one but two reasons for the wearing of the loros at Easter. It is also the reason why (contrary to Ebersolt) the celebration and, still more permanently, the costume attached themselves to Easter the most triumphant of Christian feasts, and not the other way ro~d.

The difficulty in tracing the history of titular office and associated ceremonials of the consulship after the time of Heraclius makes it impossible to determine with certainty the precise significance of the appearance of the consular costume on the coins of Justinian II-if indeed there was one single "precise" significance to its use. But even if there was no single meaning to the introduction of this costume and it~ attri~utes, we know that it was not done without clear purpose in mm~. "~ have been ~ble to observe that the office was undergoing modificatIons at preCISely this time, and the honorary title of ex-

Types of the Emperor 45

res sed almost at the outset of his fi~st consul seems to have been supp . t that the office was dlS-

.' t' to ri"k the conJec ure reign; It IS temp mg -., . conjunction with what seems continued deliberately at thIS t:me, ~n .. ' tiner the powers of the to have been a concerted polIcy 0 res SIC 0

nobility.83 th' that any of the changes in We are not permitted to hy~o t ~s~~ of a new consular order,

date of the procession, or t~e I~S 1 a~tl~:arne to power. The latter took place before the Isaunan yn t) . al of a newly-established

f ft' ne more YPIC move, as a matter 0 ac, IS 0 . We may suggest, however, ruling group than of one long m powfer

t'h

costume on the coins of . . . th -hich the use 0 e t

certam thmgs WI W _. t d' If the coins commemora e Justinian II may hav~ been a~s:la e . be no question that it was some more or less spec~c even~'an;~~~:te may well have coincided of the highest ceremomal order, . hether that was then held with the date of the consular celebrabtlOl~t't7e question moreover, that

t E t r There can e 1 ' . -in January or a as e . d t nse of the costume wa~ . 'gnifi 'n the broa es se , 11 the triumphal SI cance,l. f the new coin type was fu y something of which the deSIgner 0

aware. ~T' ph P 3~ • p h. . 367-8,andHtce ., . ,.

63 Cf. the actions recorded ill Th.op ,pp

TYPES OF CHRIST

The major innovation of Justinian II' . ., . of two portraits of Christ th s coms lIes m the mtroduction

Of th

as e obverse type f th .. ese two types 2 th fi t s 0 ree of hIS Issues 1 , e rs seen on 0 . .

we shall call Christ-type A (PLATE ur ~oms of Type II, and which head; the hair is long falIi b h' V, 3

0), IS broad-faced and round of

we have remarked 'appeng : mf

d the shoulders. The right hand as , ars m ront of th . '

gesture of blessing whil . f e nght shoulder in the , e m ront of th 1 f If we look for parallels t thO Tee t breast is held the Book.

viving antecedents in Chn~ t. IS ype A, we find that there are no sur-Oth s Ian art so far 't h er bearded portraits of Ch . t f as 1 as been preserved. thi d ns 0 course h d s ate, particularly from th f h a appeared long before di t' . e ourt c t s lllchve characteristics of T _ eA' en ury on, but all lack the rounded head, and the cle 1 yp . the wavy hair and beard the t . ar y marked pt' ' wo tmy locks stray down ont th f ar m the hair, from which

B~t .if Type A appears seemi: 1 e orehead.3

.

JustIman II, its subsequent h'~: y f~r the first tIme on these coins of mented, and of the greatest ~" ory IS, by contrast, quite well docu­does not recur, naturally en lill

h Pdort.ance to later Byzantine art It

oug , unng the II' . 1 F . conoc ashc Controversy

or guIdance in establ" h' ' certain of the theorie IS mg a framework for thi Gowans for permis . s presented herein, I am dee ~ c~apter, as well as for Christ-Types" read ~lOn to draw upon his pa er ~,-i mdebt~d to Dr. Alan 19 ..

8 In addit' 1m Prof. A. M. Friend Jr' p '. he Earliest Byzantine

. lOn, have had th ,. s semmar at Prin t ... Torp, who undert k e advantage of d' . . ce on mlvIarch, 2 Dam Led .00 researches along simila I' ISCUSSIon WIth Mr. HjaImar

ercq, m Cabral Le I r mes at the U' . liturgie VIP cols - c ercq, Dictionnaire d' . ~llverslty of Oslo. plates disfua-ni h'ed2396-7, working from th I' archeologze chretienne et de

, e-s a third type e me engra . f S curly-bearded Christ from our coin f vrngs a abatier's with original spec' appeared to be wearing a diad

S 0 Type IV, wherein the

th

Imens and with h em of pea I C . e source of this d'ff p otographic!at . r s. ompans

on

of curls on the headl o~r~nc~ w~s merely a faulty ~e ~s ~ill demonstrate that This is in the excellent :~ic~n;.t-~e common to ~re~g of the double roW 3 The closest parallels t e, Jesus-Christ" coI~ m T:y-pes III and IV. ill. J. \Vilpert D' are o.be found in a fre~c f~' 2393-

24

68.

1903, PI. ::57, datl:.g21ir~:~en der Katakombe~ ~~:sth~ P?nzian.a Catacomb, lack~ the very distinctiv he SL"th or seventh centu' relb:rrg-~-Breisgau, and m S. ~Iaria Antiqua e fu~v and the tiny locks f~~ but m which the hai; , . . de Gruneisen S. mg over the forehead

46

,amte Marie Antique, Rome;

Types of Christ 47

but we find Type A used alJnost immediately after the Reinstatement of the Images, on the coins of Michael III (842-867) (PLATE V, 3

1).4

With the inscription changed to read simply" Jesus Christos," an almost exact copy of the coin type of Justinian II appears on the reverse of Michael Ill's gold coins, but with a significant variation: instead of falling behind both shoulders, as on the pre_Iconoclastic coins, Christ's hair in this case seems to trail down in front of His left shoulder. This can only be an error made in copying the earlier coin­type, in which the die-cutter confused the lines of the pallium on the type of Justinian II's coin for locks of hair; it proves, most signif­icantly, that the pre-Iconoclast coins, on which the distinction be­hveen hair and garment was very slight, must have been the models

for these coins of Michael III. Later issues of Michael III correct this confusion (PLATE V, 3

2),5

as does the die of a gold bulla of Michael's murderer and successor, Basil 1.6 Still another issue of Basil I, his regular solidi, supplants this image of Christ \vith a neW one: it is Christ at full length, seated blessing on a lyre-backed throne, holding in his left hand the Book of Gospels; the legend reads "IHS xpS REX REGNANTIUM" (PLATE

V, 33).7 Both the details of the head and upper parts of the body, and the legend, support the identification of this figure with the bust-portrait on the coins of Michael III as well as, by extension, the coins of Justinian II. The only details at variance are the extended right arm of the enthroned figure, as against the inward-turned arm on the bust-type, and the presence of a nimbUS enclosing the cross

behind Christ's head.s

1911, PI. 25, where the part and perhaps the loCks are to be discerned, but in which the proportions of the head are longer and thinner. (The Christ on the Cross in S. Maria Antiqua, ibid., PI. 39, is of the same type.)

Keither of these is, in our opinion, sirnilar enough to the type us.ed on the coins of Justinian II to constitute a clear precedent; although, as will be seen by the discussion which folloWS there is no reason whY such ChrIst-types should not have existed, at least' after the late sixth centurY, 'without in any way damaging the points to be made about the distinctive charac~er ~f the type. 4 Cf. BMC II, PI. XLIX, 16-18, and the enlarged reproductIOn III Grabar,

L'iconoclasme, fig. 46. 5 Grabar, op. cit., fig. 47· • BMC II, PI. L, 10. 7 Ibid. II, PI. L, Il-12. .' . . 8 The absence of a nimbuS is a puzzling and, as of the prese~t ~1Ille, mexphcable detail of the Christ-inlag

es of Justinian II. There is no mdicatlO

n, however,

48 ' Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

, These details, which may in part be accounted for by the different spatial arrangement of the new coin-type, are scarcely more than expected variations in the transmission of a standard type; it would seem clear that, from the point of view of the artists and die-designers of the post-Iconoclastic period, the Christ-type A of Justinian II was believed to be a segment of a larger picture of the enthroned Christ, which was associated with the special title, "Rex Regnantium." It was not, therefore, a simple imago clipeata in the classical sense, a medallion portrait complete within its frame,9 which the earlier coins portrayed; as the unsupported Book, implying the existence of a left hand, shows, it was rather a segment of a larger picture, and in the strictest sense was incomplete in itself: the coin of Basil I, then, shows us what the Macedonian period understood the full prototype, in a general way, to have looked like.

Out of the bust-type of Christ "Rex Regnantium," on the other hand, there evolved, shortly after the time of these coins of Basil I, the image of Christ Pantocrator, a true clipeus image, a purely circular portrait of God the Father seen through the image of Christ His Son, complete and perfect as given within its frame (PLATE VII, 36).1°

\Ve have already remarked that the artists and iconographers of the post-Iconoclastic period considered our Christ-type A as part of a

that it. presents a significant obstacle to the elucidation of the coin types; it must slm'pl~ be accepted as, most probably, a characteristic of the prototype of the com Image. In, t~e p~e-Iconoclastic period, for example on sarcophagi, the use of haloes to ~lStingUlSh the figure of Christ was by no means universal, nor ~oes the cross-llllllbus become standard until the post-Iconoclastic period. ?bvIO?sly, what IS needed is a really thorough study of the nimbus, from its Impen~l usage~ through th<?se of, the formative Christian periods. In the mean~e, "ar: mterestmg discu~slOn is contained in the article by Meyer Schap~o, ~otes on Castelsepno, 1. The Three-Rayed Nimbus," The Art BIIl/etm XXXIX, 1957, pp. 292-7. 9 Such as is ~ourished by the iconophiles and others in the very interesting margmal mmlatures of the Chludov Psalter: Grabar, L'iconocZasme, figs. I43, I+h 146, 1,52, e~c. For the clipeus in general, d. Joh. Bolten, Die Imago Clzpe~ta. Em Be~trag J;!tY Portrat- und Typengeschichte (Studien zur Geschichte und Rultur der Altertums, ed. E. Drerup, H. Grimme & J. P. Kirsch, XXI, I), Paderbom, 1927. 10 Cf. the great c:rpola m<?sa~c of the church of Daphni, illus. E. Diez and O. Demus, B y::ant me J,J osalCS m Greece, Cambridge, 193 I, PL I; the Pantocrator appears on the c0u:' of Constantine YII Porph}Togenitus and his successors: B},[C II, PL LIlI, I, I2-{, et,seq. To anticipat~ slightly, Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. {o-r, dlscusses the relatron of the Rex Regnantium image to that of the Pantocrator III an Illummating way.

Types of Christ 49

'. .·t behooves us to enquire if this image picture of the enthroned Chnst, 1. A't happens the answer is im-

bond the coms. s 1 ' had any currency ey h fi t f the mosaics recently uncovered mediately at hand : O~e of t h~a ::~s;anbul portrays just this figure of in the church of Hag1a Sop ( VI 3~) 11 The work of the

. I b k d throne PLATE ,j' Chnst on the y,re- ac e al d th eat mosaic over the central Byzantine Institute has reve ~ h del

gr been known to exist, since

rth ;vhere It a ong . doorway of the na ex, ~ bli h d by Salzenberg in the nme-it was drawn by Foss~tI and pu u:.a ee of Basil 1's coin, albeit in far teenth century,12 Here IS the ~ery d t gChrist's feet bows in humblest more classically elegant style, an a figure frequently identified

. E f the Romans, a proskynesls the mperor 0 bl Leo's father Basil I the Mace-as Leo VI, but, even more proba y, donian himselfP e of the greatest impor-

The attributes of this C~rist figuGrebar

has shown in his few pages . . al rmbolism as ra ar tance in the Impen Sy - . ' t' 14 The lyre-backed throne

. h or m adora IOn. . h {)n the subJect of t e emper b t a very specific one, whlc

al· d t e of throne, u d is not a gener lze yp. the fifth century onwar , . . 1 comage from . 'al

appears on the unpena . h used in the 1lllpen . nl articular t rone and is almost certm yap . . types showing the syn-

. . f d e peclally on com ceremonial; It IS oun s " -0

I Th Byzantine Inshtute, 19:1

h ' S phia at Istanbu , e 11 The lvlosaics of Hag ~a a T! b'

t · pel vom •. tS PIs 5-7 d k -Ie von Konstan zno . . . tf h Bate en ma 12 \V. Saizenberg, Altc~ns tC_ e XXVII. ' 0 VI in .XII. jahrhundert, Berhn,~8:J:' ~~ntification of this emperor ~Lt}~et Year's 13 T. 'Whittemore advan~ t :t~nbul. Preliminary Report ,on t esti~~e 1933, The NIasaics of St. Saphta at. I of the Narthex, The Byz,:nt~e In rticle' "The Work, I93I-I932. Th~ M~S~:LxXI; he upheld it,a?alll III l~n:Ci YI: 1940 , pp. 14-23 and PIs. \1 & hi" Studi Bizant~m e Neoe b' Gribas narthex mosaic of Sancta Sop acted in an article by K. A. K) Oar~h~~xia XV'

21 -2 He has also been suppo 'So hia" (in Greek r ' P.kem!rk;~n the narthex mos~ic~ of IHagtlhae id~ntilication followed bYdGrabbaedr,

h " This IS a so h I ima rre 15 escn 1940 , pp. 2I7~26, & 25v--';' I " 97, wher~ the w" 0 e 0

Byzantine Pamtmg, Geneva'C~53t ~s "Holy \VlSdom ., b considered as conveying the ~oncept of IS with Basil I, which has. ee~ bv A. :\1.

The identification of th~ empero: years, was strongly ad'\an\ in~O' der with renewed seriousness III recen aikbildes iiber dem Haup e _ 0 0 __ -9 Schneider in "Der Kaiser, des :!,o~riens Christianus III, ~0C:9t~Pf~~;est~ Sophienkirc?-e z:r- Konstantlllo~~ 1936, pp. 32-3. And . ar: image of the ,and again III his Byzanz, Be , that there was fo~erly , this could seriously, L'iconoclasme, 1?' 2Il, :'J' the emperor in this mosaIC, Patriarch Photius oppoSIte tha

'II scarcely be other than BaSI . 14 L'empereur, pp. 100-6.

50 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

thronos of two or more Augusti, as on the coins of Leo I and Leo IIP of Justin I with Justinian I (PLATE V, 34),16 or of Justin II with his wife Sophia,l7 where the motif appears for the last time prior to the Iconoclastic period, when it was revived and used frequently on the coins.

The inscription on the Book, which we may read in the mosaic of Hagia Sophia, is as follows: "Peace be unto you; I am the Light of the World."18 The Evangelical source of both elements of this formula is well known ;19 yet they had so important a place in the symbolism of imperial Rome that this derivation seems almost of equal impor­tance with the biblical one. 20 The Pax Romana is a well-known con­cept of late antiquity; its transition into Christian imagery may be studied in the Homily on Matthew ii, I, of John Chrysostom, which embodies a vision of the Pax in Heaven after a victorious war con­ducted by Christ against sin and death, and in which Christ enthroned presides over a glorious Triumph.21 The concept of the emperor as Lux Mundi was also as old as the Roman Empire-and had pre­Roman antecedents as well-for it entered Roman panegyric liter­ature with the work of Horace.22 The cult of Sol Invictus revived its popularity in the third century, and sustained it well into the fourth, after the Christianization of the Empire itself. After 400 or so it lapsed into disuse, until it was revived in the time of Justin II by Corippus, the poet who perhaps has best right to the title of the last of the long line of Roman panegyrists.23 In describing a ceremony taking place in S. Sophia, Corippus actually compares Christ the Light of the World with the emperor: beginning with a paraphrase of the Credo, "Jesus natus, non factus, plenum de lumine lumen," he

15 Tolstoi, op. cit. II, PI. 8, 2. 16 Ibid. III, PI. 18, 141-3. 17 B.ltC I, PI. XI, 12.

18 Et?1;V7J uf1.rv-)Ey6l Et.t-Lr. ':"0 tp&C; TOG x6crlJ.ov .. 19 The first part is the greeting of Christ after the Resurrection: Luke xxiv, 36 ; John xx, 19 & 26; the other phrase comes from John viii, 12.

~ G:abar, loco Ctt."as well as L'iconoclasme, p. 40, on the Pax Christiana, v,;:ith slgnificant quotatIon from the contemporary Anastasius Sinaiticus; idem., p. 37, relates thIS to the word PAX on the globus held by the emperor on our corns of Type III. O! Migne, P. G. LVII, cols. 22-4.

22 Odes, &ok IV, Ode V, 5. 23 De laudibus Iustini minoris, I, 149-50 & IV, 328; ed. Partsch, pp. 121 & 155.

Types of Christ 51

describes the prayer of Justin II before Christ, and co.rrcludes, "que: t Ipse regit reges Ipse et non su -

Christus amat rex magnus, ama ur. . ' ri t Li ht con-dit lli "24 The concepts of Emperor-LIght and .Ch s - g , ur u.

d· b r side into the Book of Ceremomes ;25 thence the

tmue S1 e ) f C . and even imagery proceeds to flower in the literature 0 omneman

later times. . 1 1 . perial one' It is clear, then, that this image was a partIc~ ar Y ~ R an~ d . k that Basil I especially revered Chnst as ex egn

an we now 1 . himself and his House upon tium, to whom he gave credit f~r ~ aCI~g l' 1 linked to this one the imperial throne.26 Since this tItl~ ;s so P aI~ Y we may infer that

. . t s on Basil s own coms, particular Image, as I occur . . fact directed to a Basil's worship of the Rex RegnantIUm was m

. 'al Christ specific image of the Imp~n. . cedents in the New Testa-

The title Rex RegnantI~m Itself.has,~7~ Regum in the Vulgate) ment. Christ is called "Kmg of Km~s R ex 1 tion xvii I4 and xix, I6

. . I T th vi I5 and m eve a , three tImes, m ImO Y , , " is em 10 ed in the Greek); but (in xix, I5, the term "Pantocrator k p :th the Latin, reading whereas in the latter cases the GreeGagrkee.s B "),~~)'" -rWV Bexcrr.AE;uOV-

, . I T" th the ree IS excr""w.,' Bllcr~).e:u~ Bexcr~).E;(uv, m ImO Y Wh Rul "our Rex Regnan-

h · "King of Those 0 e, Kin' 't"<OV, t at IS to say, d finit . Christ as King of gs , . . 1" . subtle but e e. all

tlum. The distmc Ion IS .'. bein having authority over is the supreme power, the divme. Ig d in a particular relation-

. R R ntium He IS pace h bemgs; but as ex egna .' li that He rules through t e ship to the rulers of other men. This Imp es ch individual human rulers of the earth, rather than directly over ea

being. . . . a lied to Christ in the Cherubic The title of Rex RegnantIum IS pp d . the Great Entrance of

HYlilll, the portion of the liturgy sungh

u:mtg

the Altar 27 This hvrnn, M f the Prot eslS 0 - . . .•

the Elements of the ~ ass rom .. If' relatively late additIOn to which with the Great Entrance Itse IS a

24 De laudibus IV, 322-2, ed. partsch, p. 1~~ 'oy of the Universe: I, 74 (65), '5 Th 1 ' 'ty of the eTn'nPrors assures J d gnifies the power of the e ummOSl ~r- '11 minates an ma , So hi ed. Vogt II, p. 103. Christ the SUl~f U rse (precisely as in the Hagm p a emperors, assuring Peace to the mve _­mosaic): I, 6, ed. Vogt I, p. 46. T' life of Basil I), ed. Bekker, pp. 334 :J,

26 Theaph. Cont. V, 80 (Constantine v II scri tion in which the family of Basil I where the Porphyrogenitus notes, the ~ raking their house to, IX?wer. . IIP give thanks to the Rex Regnan~1Um"o in Cabrol-Leclercq, Dictwnna~re , 27 Cf. A. Fortescue, "Cheroublcon, cols. 1281-6.

F

52 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

the Eastern liturgy, is said by Cedrenus to have been incorporated into that liturgy at the order of Justin 11.28 This assertion seems to be corroborated by the fact that the first mention of the Cherubicon occurs in 582, in a sermon protesting its use -and hence implying that it was then a relative novelty-by Eutychius of Constantinople.29

The appelation which concerns us does not appear in the normal form of the Cherubic Hymn, however, but in a special form, the Proper of Easter Eve: '0 yap ~ot(J'r.Ae:uc; "CW'J ~otcr~Ae:u6'J"Cw'J, xp~cr"Co~ 0 0e: 6.:;. 30

The title, King of Those Who Rule, is also applied to Christ in a letter of Pope Leo II to the emperor Constantine IV, dated on the Nones of May, 682.31 From this occasion to the time of the coins of Justinian II is a matter of but a decade or so; after the use of the title on these coins, it seems to have lapsed during the Iconoclastic period, until its great revival in popularity in the second half of the ninth century.

When we have come this far in investigating this figure of the Enthroned Christ Rex Regnantium, and have established the anti­quity of the elements involved, insofar as it is possible to trace them, we are compelled to ask ourselves if there was not some monumental prototype, prior to the mosaic of Hagia Sophia, which determined its characteristics? The answer must lie in the realm of hypothesis, in­capable of absolute proof; and yet there is such a concordance of circumstantial evidence on the matter that it is difficult to reject the ans'wer which presents itself.

Unquestionably, the preeminent image of the Enthroned Christ after the Restoration of the Images was the one in the apse of the

28 His:oria':U~1 Compen~i,um, ed. Bekker, Bonn, 1838, p. 685: [Justin II] 'E":'.l7':w6lj as: ,?o;MeG6CL~ XCL~ 0 xe:pou~~xoc; U(.l.IIOC;.

29 Homily on Easter. and t~e Holy Eucharist, in ::\1igne, P. G. LXXXVP, cols. 240 G-I. Eutychius objected to such reverence being shown to uncon­secrated elements. 30 B.-Ch: Mercier: La. Liturgie de Saint Jacques, Paris, 1946 (R. Graffin, Patro­logla Onentahs XX\I, 2), p. I76; this edition includes earlier texts than those used by F. :. Brightman, Liturgies.Eastem and Western, I: Eastern Liturgies, Oxford, I890, p. 4 I ; but e,'en m this case the earliest MS. is of the thirteenth century~. Sin~e Eutychius seems ~o refer to one of the special versions of the Cherublcon, It IS consldered pOSSIble that these texts of linrited applicability were the earlIest ones to ~e used: cf. Brightman, op. cit., p. 573 and p. 532 , n. 9; also Fortescue, loco CIt., esp. col. 1283. 31 Mansi, o-p. cit., XI, cois. 725-36; quoted directly, below, p. 95.

Types of Christ 53

. . . Palace 32 Before this image the emperor Chrysotncliruum of the Great . t feast day·33 directly

. fi t fficial act on any grea ' prayed, as hIS rs 0 . If f which the greatest

. h' rial throne Itse , rom beneath It was t e Impe d Th mperor's obeisance before affairs of the state were conducte. b e

f e the Christ Enthroned in

this image recalls that of the emperor e ore th Imperial Doorway, h . there stands over e

S. Sophia: and t e mosaIC . before entering the Great where in turn the emperor made obeIsance

Church.34 . li . m was erected by Michael . . th Chry~otnc ruu

The image of Chnst III e .~ hi . f rmation reveal that h· h "'ve us t s In 0 , III' but the same texts w IC 0- • hich had existed

, h t ation of an Image w this work was simply teres or . f Menander Protector there before the Iconoclasm. An eplgrafmtho gal' n and blunts the

. h h th shone or a , states "The bght of Trut a . d and Error is fallen; eyes ~f the false teachers. Piety hath IllFcreabsehOld Christ pictured

d G groweth or e , Faith flourisheth an race . d overthrows the dark

h . erial throne an h again shines above t e ImP . h 1 door is imaged t e

h trance like a 0 Y , . heresies. And above teen , Pt' ch as victonous over

E r and the a nar , guardian Virgin. The mpero . kers and all around, as

d 'th theIr fellow-wor , h Error, are picture near WI . . 1 martyrs priests: w ence sentries of the house, are angels, diSCI~ eSt' d of by' its former name

Ch . t t iclinium IllS ea d f we call this now the ns 0 r 'f th Lord Christ an 0 . 't h the throne 0 e h f Chrysotriclinium, SIllce I as tl and of Michael, aut or 0

His :Mother, and the images of the Apos es

wisdom."35 . 1 s reserving the bright A . d "0 Emperor Mlchae, a p f all fleshly

galn we rea , d as conqueror 0 preciousness of the ancient image, an . .

f aJ.roost Identical d two passages 0 • ;-, • -10')

32 De Cer. I, I, ed. Vogt I,_PP· 4 a::'x;l~~V Ell fl lG,,:oFlj":CLC ,'1) -hr'OllseY~t~ d · -, -ou XPUGo.p. , 6"" .,. This p a "" wor mg: 'e·J ":TI XOYXYl :, ".' 'er.t 6povov XCL ec,ofLev " . If but the

T(.l.W'J x:d 0eou 6e:oe:txe).o~ (LytCL e;tXWVed

the impenal throne Itse, t d • l' plac upon . ti ns to be quo e might apply to a portab e Icon, 'th the other descnp 0

context of these passages, together WI h was not the case. immediately below, make it clear that suc . t XXXVI

I 1. d'Orzen " , 33 Ibid. I, I, ed. Vogt ,p. 4· V Grumel, in Ec"os nclush'ely 34 Ibid. I, I, ed. Vo~ I,. pp. I~~:S i:empereur, dem~nstrate~ c~ce before 1937, pp. 214-5, re"'lew-mg Gra t the actual scene which too p that the mosaic cannot represen . London the Imperial Doorway itself. P t n I (Loeb Classical sene~, t Hagi~ 33 The Greek Anthology I, 106, trfi ae~ reappear in s~i1ar .contex :e~erred to 1918, pp. 44-7. Many of.the same J: basis of Grabar S conjecture Sophia, a point WhICh IS perhaps above, L'iconoclasme, p. 2Il, n. 3·

54 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

stains, thou dost picture the L d' I the word of dogma."36 or III co ors too, establishing by deed

What Michael III had done th place a copy of the Enthroned Chri e~,. was to ~e-erect in its former Chrysotriclinium before the d t s. Image wh~ch had existed in the sibility for the first imag es 7~I~n of the Images.

37 The respon­

cannot be established withe, eretc.e III the pre-Iconoclastic period,

h cer aIllty' what our d

owever, is that the buildin .'. sources 0 tell us, numerous dependencies w g, ant edI~ht~sIded domed chamber with

. ' as erec e III Its final f b J . and Its decoration carried out t I orm y ustm II,38 the original-is slightlyamb' ,or a eas~ completed-the wording of prototype may have exist Iro~s~by hIS succ~ssor, Tiberius II.39 A empe.ror Marcian a centurye ea;lie:~40 y on the SIte, a building of the

It IS curious to note then h image of Christ Enth~oned' 0; ma~ elements of the Macedonian narthex mosaic at S So hi asal ex egnantium, illustrated in the

. p a, so appea t thO . lyre-backed throne on th' r a IS partIcular time: The nounced this type of "ma~ Ct01~; o~ J~stin II (whose successor re-

. Jes as cOIll-lillage41). th Chnst and the Emperor L' h ' e concepts of both Corippus, the court poet. a:~ ~g ts fo: the World, employed by of Christ, Rex Regnanti~ i e thas tChhe Illtr~duction of the very title

t f ,n e eroblc H S

men s 0 the concept of th E ymn. 0 all the ele-enthroned Ch . t R ns ex Regnantium,

;; Ibid. I, 107,_tr. Paton I, pp. 46- . Cf. S. der ~ersessian "L d' 7 C . ' e ecor des egli d ongres International d'Etudes B zant' yses u .Ixe sii'de," Actes du VIe

~O{!ed by Grab~r, op. cit., p. 2II: tnes ... 1, Pans, 1951, pp. 315-20

, sup-

o Grarnmahcus, ChronoCTr ph' Zonaras Epi'to H' "a la, ed. Bekker B n 8 S'd' mae tstoriarum XIV 10 ed. p.' don, I 4

2, p. 13

2; Joannes

39 u:;::GLexicon,. ed. Adler, Leipzig,' 19;1 Volmner

, Bonn, 18

97, p. 174; and . ~mahcus, op. cit., pp. I -8-' . ,p. 646 , s. v. "Ioustinos."

op. Clt. Xlv, II pp 180-1 37, Cedrenus, op cit p 69 Z 40 . ,. • • ., • 0; onaras

Cf. Scnptores Originum Consta t' . ' p. 256 . On the basis of this refere:;:~o~~arttm II, ed. Preger, Leipzig 190~ hypotheSIS as to the history of this ~rt' ango has constructed an inte~estm'~ reference to the rather m:lrsteriousr:'ext~~~he palac~complex, with particula~ du Grand PalaIS de Constantinople" C h' r galle~es of Marcian:" "Autour ~6 .. \\nether or not ::\.farcian did build

a zers Archeologiques V, 1951

, pp. 179-It IS clear that the constru t' a prototype of the Chry tri'd' . new b 'ld' . c Ion undertaken b J' so 1lllum,

ill mg,conceIved in tenns of sixth y ustm II was a completely furthennore a separate architechlral -centt:ry architechlral principles and ~lw:r nght. conception entirely independent ~ its

Cf. Grabar, L'empereHr, pp. 24£.

Types of Christ 55

Light of the World and Bestower of Peace, were current at one precise point in Byzantine history; it seems more than probable that the image produced during the Macedonian Dynasty as the supreme symbol of the divine bestowal of imperial power could have originated

at this particular moment. This concept of the bestowal of power by Christ seems to have

been present almost constantly in the mind of Justin II,42 but he gave it fullest expression in his famous abdication speech on the occasion of the elevation of Tiberius II to the throne; phrases such as "Behold the insignia of supreme power; you are about to receive them not from my hand, but from the hand of God,"43 are addressed to his successor, while the people are told that their neW emperor is being given them not by Justin himself, but by the deity.44 According to Justin, the words of the speech were dictated to him as he spoke by an angel, and the chroniclers state that they were taken down verbatim by secretaries, for the edification of posterity.

Our evidence is thus quite circumstantial, but nonetheless it is more than tempting to conceive of Justin II delivering this speech in his own Chrysotriclinium, pointing as he speaks to the very image of this Bestower of power. Nor would this have been impossible, in the light of the evidence of our sources on the history of the structure, since they make it clear that Tiberius II was merely finishing the work begun by his predecessor when he decorated the interio~ of the throne-room; they do not specify whether part of the decoratIOn :vas already in place, or if none of it had actually been begun at the tIme

of Tiberius' accession. We know that the image of Christ was in the conch of a sort of

apse, at the east side of the building;45 indeed, the general scheme seems to have resembled closely that of the church of S. Vitale, at Ravenna, and of other eight-sided structures of the same

~2 Cf. Cedrenus, op. cit., p. 681, early in the reign .. It may be significant that It IS during this same period that the bust of Christ a;;su~es the, c~tral and dominant position on the consular diptychs: d. J. ?eer, Das Kal~erbild l~ Kreuz," Schweizer BBitriige zur Allgemeinen Gesch~chte XIII, 195:» p. 103,

and the discussion in Grabar L'iconoclasme, pp. 18-9 & 38

. . 43 :ou-:O -:0 a;(i;fL'X <> Ele:6:; a~~ alaw<;w, OUJ( e:yw. Theophylactus Simocatta,

Hlstoriamm III, 11, ed. Bekker, Bonn, 1834, pp. 136--:7

. . . . 44 Cf. R. Payne Smith The Third Part of the EccleSiastical H!story or John Bishop of Ephesus, odord, 1860, p. 173; Michael Syrus, op. Cit. II, pp. 33-+--6.

45 Theoph. Cant. VI, 26, ed. Bekker, p. 373·

Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

. d 46 perlO. The example of S Vitale h the apse was considered th' . sows us that ::he decoration of and therefore the first to ~ most lIDportant feature III such a building, see any decoration compI t ede~e~~ted:-so that if Justin II lived to probably have seen the' e e IllfsI e his Chrysotriclinium, he would

Wh lIDage 0 the Rex Regnantium I oever was responsible for th' . image, its importance t . 1 e erectIon of the original mosaic

o us IS c ear' It s 1m .. that this was the ikon whi h . eems a ost Illcontrovertible Michael III who ale c

l was. reproduced after the Iconoclasm by

, ~o emp oyed It 0 h·' . another mosaic of a simil t n IS coms, as dId Basil I; finally, at Hagia Sophia,47 ar ype was placed over the imperial doorway

, SI IOn of ou Chr' t This being the case the po ·t· of Justinian II becomes all r IS -type A on the coins model for the coin type efqu

M· y h apparent: it must have been the

. 0 IC aelIII a d h consIdered by the artists d d' ,n ence must have been faithful copy of the gre ~ eSI~ers of the ninth century to be a existed when the coin waa lID

t agke I.n the Chrysotriclinium as it had

s s ruc 'It m the models for their reprod t" ay even have served as one of uc IOn of the P la ., not know what other evid . a ce mOSalC, SInce we do

th I ence was availabl ft e conoclasts. e a er the depredations of

The concept of the deity as b t h' h es ower of d .. W IC we find expressed at both t. .Oln~on, as pambasileus, Chrysotriclinium mosaic b J . urrung pomts In the history of the

t .. y ustIn II and b B il I grea antiqmty in the Medit y as ,had of course

h ~ erranean world" h sp ere, the supreme pamb .z ' m t e Greco-Roman

h h asl eus was m"t f woad been called by th t' o~ 0 ten Zeus-Jupiter a epIthet a 1 . ' s ear y as Homenc Greek

:: Cf. Ebers~lt, Le grand palais de C ' Prof. Bellinger has advanced' onstantlnople, Paris 1910

about the two m' h ' m correspondence " ., coinages I' e "amI •. ipes of enthroned Christ:fi ' an mterestmg suggestion , . ,a c umsy" :fi - gures from th 1\T '

Alexander (Ibid PI gure seen on coins of Bill e nJ.acedoman andRo .,. LII, 1), Romanus I and as (Bl1!1C II, PI. L, II-IZ),

manns I and Christopher (Ibid PI LI Constantine VII (Ibid. LII 6) ?;;idS~~ wl~_L)eo VI (Ibid., PI. ii: ~) i~,l);aSagainstamore"eleg~t': these. two' 4 , J, ~nd on other unpublished ns~antine VII and Romanus I mosaic so ~=~~~ ty-pes may.in fact be l~~ecImens, of the same reigns: that of Hagia Sophia-su ~~th ,Basil I, and the oth;ro:t~Ith the Chrysotriclinium of the latter mosaicg"esting, perhaps, that Leo VI th~ tympanum mosaic h)-potheses, none of th:!er all! This suggestion raise~ght be the e~pe~or our hope that Prof Bell' germane to the subject of th umerous fascmahng . mger WIll see fit t ,e present work' it is

o work It out in more detail.

Types of Christ 57

times.48

The concept of Jupiter as pambasileus doubtless played a part in the formation of the Roman triumphal imagery, in which the triumphator-and later the consul as well-assumed the garb of Jupiter Capitolinus.49 A splendid illustration of the concept of all­powerful Jupiter in the imperial art was formerly in the Golden House of Nero at Rome, where a fresco of Jove the Thunderer occupied the center of a circular (domed?) ceiling, enthroned on clouds, and surrounded by an entourage of gods, goddesses, Tritons

and other mythological figures.50

But the image of Zeus-Jupiter which most fully expressed to the ancients this concept of the world-ruler was the great chryseleph

antine

statue at Olympia, the work of phidias. Writers of all nations, pagans and Christians alike, paid tribute to the immense impression wrought upon the classical mind by this statue.51 We can see from the state­ment of Origen that this one sculpture did not receive the condem­nation which the Christians gave other images of the pagan divinities. 52

The later history of the statue has been pieced together,53 so th~t we may trace its movements after the abolition of the OlympIC festivals in 394 A. D. by Theodosius 1. At that time, Phidias' ~culp­ture was still in its place, but when, during the reign of TheodoslUs II (4

06-45

0), the temple of Zeus at Olympia burned to the ground, the

statue was no longer inside it. In the interval, it had be.en transpo~ted to Constantinople and set up in the palace of a certa:n Lauso

s, III a

gallery othenvise knO\vn as the Lauseion, along WIth such ~t~er famous works of classical art as the Hera of Samos, the Kll1dian Aphrodite, and the Kairos of Lysippos. The Lauseion, h?weVer, ~urn­ed in its turn in the year 462, and all these masterpIeces penshed

together. 48 Cf 0 h' h 't d b C F H BruchIIlann Epitheta Deorum quae . an rp IC ymn, CI e Y • . . " 'd

apud Poetas Graecos Legllnt'ltY (\v. H. Roscher, A us!iihrllChes Lex~kon eY

Griechischen und R6mischen 111ytho1ogie, supplement), LeIpZIg, 1893, p. 134·

49 Cf. above, pp. 37 f. ,R 50 J. P. Bellorus & ~1 ,\ Causseus pictztrae ant!quae cryptarztm. O1t!,anaY1~m, ,. _ .• . " A d' PI VI. Is It entIrely Im-et sepulcn Nasonum , Rome, I750, p. 89, ppen lX,' be ed 'h th possible that the Domus Aurea might still have been remem r ~ en e

Chrysotriclinium was being bnilt? , - 11 Cambridcre 51 For a summary of ancient opmlOn, d. A. B. Cook, Zeus II , " ,

1940 , Section II, pp. 954-73' " Ch' f 52 Contra Celsl~m VIII, 17; in Roberts & Donaldson, The Ante-.\ lcene ns Jan

Fathers IV, Xew York, 1890 , p. 646

. 53 Cf. Cook, op. cit. UF, pp. 969-7°'

58 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

It was just at this time that there originated a legend which has long intrigued historians of Christian art. In the time of the Arch­bishop Gennadios, who was Patriarch of Constantinople from 458 to 471, a certain painter made an ikon, at the instigation of a pagan, portraying Christ in the likeness of Zeus (ev ,tX;e:~ ~~6-;); the painter's hand and arm withered in consequence of his blasphemous act, but he was healed miraculously through the intercession of Gennadios.54

The early versions of this legend do not amplify the words, "in the likeness of Zeus," but when the miracle was recounted by John of Damascus, the famous eighth-century iconophile described most ex­plicitly his conception of a figure of Christ in the likeness of Zeus: "The hair on the head was painted as dividing on either side so that the eyes were not hidden. For in such manner the Greeks painted their Zeus."55

Such a legend would not have arisen, obviously, had there not been some occasion when images of Christ were considered to have been derived from those of the pagan Zeus; and modem scholarship has certainly been able to show that more than one pagan deity provided the antecedents for the appearance of Christ in one or another of the lik:n~sses known to the Christian Empire. But with regard to the Phidian Zeus, there seems to be a particular link with the Panto­crator-Pambasileus type of Christ, which has often been advanced, and as often rejected,56 especially since comparison with the best­known ancient reproduction of the Phidian statue, the famous coin of Elis which p0:trays on. one side the enthroned figure of the god and on the other his head III profile, shows little resemblance to the familiar ~hristian image.57 What had been lacking, however, was an opportumty ~o compare the two images in full-face, which is the key to the Chnstian representation. With the general acceptance of the 54 From the lost "Ecclesiastical History" of Theodoros An t ""-;tten o hI' "xth 0 0 agnos es, ,," ill t e ear y ~l. century. cf. G. ~Ioravcsik, ByzantinotuYcica, 1. Die Byzan-Izmschen Quellen der Geschtchte der Turkv6lker Budapest ? . the ;;xt of this ~assage is in "~igne, P. G. LXXXVII, col. n;. 1943, p. 3-4,

De 'lmagmlbus III, m ~ligne, P. G. XCIV col 1413" -- ~ .' _ - u-, , _ :E -. ' • • EV .cu ,"pOcr;(ljlLa:.~ .0

~\lof1.~-;~~ ":~IU 6l":r,?,~~ YEYFa;~ij'rptE~, e; £XGr'tipou Tci~ Tp(Z~; ~t ~e?~~~ 3~eO'TruO'ct; (il~ fL1j ":tX:; OYE'~ XV.U7':":Ea{)o:t. 't'O<Ou,,:? yd:p crz1j~,,:~ 'EMf,v<uv T:tX'O~ ":ov L1£oc ypti­qloucrt.?n the Importanc~ of the ~arr ill classical representations of divinity, d. H.P.LOrange, Apotheoszs mAnctentPo-rtraiture, Oslo, 1947,esp.p .go,onthepar­ted harrwhich became a key feature of such representations mO th thO d tury ~6 A ' JEW' LO be e rr cen .

oS ill . .elS- Ie rsdorf, Christus- und Apostelbilder Freiburrr-im-BrelSgau, 1902, pp. 18-23. ' <>

57 A. Hekler, Die Kllnst des Phidias, StuttO'art 1924 p 16 fia -6 b, ,.., oS .. 5 .

T ypes of Christ 59

M lasa in Caria noW in Boston, as a good marble head of Zeus from J: Y . (P' VIII 37) 58 however,

f h Phidian work LATE , , and accurate copy 0 .t e.. d f om full-face, this head represents this has become pOSSIble. V Iewe r T A head both in its a striking parallel to the appeara~ce of I °tuI'orn Yt::nother ' and in the

. f ne part m re a ' general proportIOns 0 0 . hi h J hn Damascene so stressed. f ftheharrw c 0 strongly marked par mg o. A d before it for the great apse

The model for our c~~t~type m~ anindeed have been the phidian mosaic of the Chrysotnchruum, y 'bl'n terms of the b mpletely senSI e, 1 Zeus. This would have een co . had been so thoroughly

. h t y when pagarusm ideation of the Sixt cen ur , all I} that there needed be no

t th intellectu eve . . suppressed (at least a e . . b wing from its imagery m this longer any fear of contarninatlO~ III .orroth destruction of the statue

I a tIme SIllce e overt way; yet not so ong. . earance could have been h lmi· ly unpresslve app

itself that its overw e ng di '~;racle serves to de-t of Genna os u= forgotten (since the very s ory f Z image must have been

. f me sort 0 eus monstrate that CopIes 0 so hi'di em- to have lived on, as . fP asse " , made). The great masterpIece 0 f h di'vine Empire, of Christ s

. t t ymbols 0 t e H' one of the most unpor an s f th Basileus appointed by . un. role on Earth through the agency 0 e . d by the same attitude,

. rtrait is charactenze Our Type B of Chnst po A but its facial features are

<:rarments attributes and legend as Typef

' thm' and triangular, the "" . - 1 r the ace wholly different: the head 1" onge , IX 38). Our first source

d Y curly (PLATE , . ' . 1

hair and beard scant an ver in the Eccleslastlca . . . the same passage h of information on thIS type IS m found the story of t e

A agnostes where we din his History of Theodoros n G dios 1;9 i\fter conclu g . henna·~ d painter healed by the Patrlarc b evolent archbishop, Theo oros storv of the miracle wrought by th~ e~ -60 savS that the other type

J " f the histOrian" .J' • d . - taken goes on to say, But one 0 haired (or scant-harre ), b

of the Savior, the woolly an~'~~This description would seem to nt, for granted as the more truth . ~I seum of Fine Arts,

nd Roman Sculpture, 0 u 1 has been ~ L. D. Caskey, Catalogue of Greek a An ther numismatiC e,.amp e Boston 1925, ~o. 25, pp. 5g-6I

d· Ph°';dias Berlin,1952.

, 0 D ZeuS es • , published by J. Llegle, er Theodoretus: 59 Cf. above, p. 53. Socrates, Sozomenus, 0: Freibur>-irn-60 Presumably one of his lost sources'ltkirchlichen Liteyatur \, 0

d h' Gesch!chte dey a -d. 0. Bar en ev.er, 8 _ "_, ~o xi)..') cr"/.T:,~C1. ":'lU

Breisgau, 1932 , pp. II7-' 1 -3' n'11at Se: 6 ~cr":O?WJ, 0 ••• The word o:<J)..'l') 61 ~'1i P G LXXX:V11 co. 1 I • T j , _' v:t!Os<>,~o')' '" gne, . . ' . U=CJXE~.O. d 2:cu-'i:r.oc -0 oU)..o') xed o).~yo":PtX°V, '"B'er-odotus' time onwar .

. ,r' ., • . ' hair from is used to describe ::Segroes

60 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

above all extant early portraits of Christ, the one used on the coins of Justinian II.

vVe learn more about this figure when Theophanes repeats the story of Gennadios, basing his remarks upon Theodoros, but adding some new information: "But certain of the historians say that the woolly and short-haired type is the more familiar in the time of the Savior."62 These remarks are repeated by such later writers as Niceph­orus Callistos,63 and were transmitted to the seventeenth-century Athos Painter's Manual, which includes in its description of the appearance of Christ from the original and earliest sources, mention of "the head frizzy-haired tending to blond, the beard being black."64 So we still seem to be dealing with our Type B; and since the type described is scarcely that of the customary Christ figure of late Byzantine times, the references to the antiquity of the image must be given great stress in considering the significance of the passage.

All these terms applied to this image of Christ, such as "more truthful," "more familiar in the time of the Savior," "as it has been transmitted by those who first saw it," point in the same direction as the anatomical characteristics of the portrait type itself would indicate: toward an origin in the Syrian and Palestinian sphere of early Christianity. And they also suggest strongly a link with the most im­portant group of early portrait-ikons of Christ, the "acheiropoietai," the images not painted by human hands, but preserving the actual living appearance of Christ by miraculous means. 65

\Ve have a description of one such portrait of Christ said to have been painted during His lifetime, which was erected in the Praetorium of the palace of Pontius Pilate, the later church of S. Sophia at

62 Ed. de Boor, p. II2: <;-cxcrt 8t 7t"Z~ -:w'J tcr~apLxw'J, O-:L ~O oOAo') y'(X~ OALy6-:PLXO~ crz~~ct ET:'t -:-05 cr6),";T.~O~ fjtxz~6-;e?6\J tcr"':'t.v. 63 Ecclesiasticae Historiae XV, 23, in 1Iigne, P. G. CXLVII col. 68. M ',' , v: ,- .l1' '

OUA07i= t XO'J -:7;'1 XZ? .YJ'J XOCt i;OCvvo'J oA£yov~ ~~AOCV 3i: ~O -yevELov: Denys de Fourna, ","fanuel d'tconographie chretienne (in Greek), ed. Papadopoulo­Keremeus, St. Petersburg, 1909, p. 226. 65 Cf. the ~tudy by E. yon.D~bschiitz, Christusbilder (Texte und Untersuchzmgen zur Gesch~ckte dey altchrzstlzchen Literatur, X. F. III), Leipzig, 1899. The lIDportant p.lace these supernaturally created images played in the iconophiles' defense agamst the. attack on man-made idols has recently been stressed by Grabar, m Afartjwmm ~I, Pans, 1946, pp. 343-57, and in L'iconoclasme, pp. 19-21, 3(}--4 & passim;: and esp. Kitzinger in D. O. Papers VIII, 1954. pp. I 22-5.

Types of Christ 61

il . Anthony of Placentia (the Jerusalem.66 The sixth-century P grIm . ifi tl enough modem Piacenza) described the ~icture'band llSIgnto_ ~!~ S~ it would

d h . "capillos su anne a ". describes the hea as avmg . . f the -ame curlv-seem that here we are also dealing wIth ~ verslO

n_

0 And ;he same "is

. . . the preVIous case". haired portraIt of ChrIst as m . t h been written by John true of the famous letter purportmg h; ave hn of course died be-

of Damascus. to the Err:pe~~r ~heo:e a:s ~ll~ i~ 82 9), which states

fore 754, whIle TheophIlu" reIgnh: of Christ put on paintings that Constantine the Great had t e

dgure

nted the Savior "as the . (. th Holy Land) an represe

and mosaICS me. : e ebrows that joined, fine eyes, a old authorities had descrIbed, WIth ~ h t es like His mother's, the long nose, frizzy hair, a black ?eard, h

es h·

on may be in doubt, there

h t "68 Although ItS aut ors Ip I ' . ~olor of w ea . d ct of the Iconoc asUC ~an be no question that this letter was a pro; B

h t th d scription is of our ype . . h Controversy, or t . a e e ed the monumental records w~c

The course of history has de~troy d all doubt the origin which would make it possible to verIfy beyo~ f Christ-portrait; still

. d ggest for this type 0 . these scraps of eVI ence su. b't d for comparison WIth our there are a few pictures WhICh rna: e CI t

e n attribution of this type

Christ-type B, and which tend ~o ear ou a . d Palestme. . ' to the area of SyrIa an 1 . the Laurentian LIbrary m

In the famous Rabula Gos~~ s :tes the manuscript very pre­Florence, whose colophon not. Yl f omposition in exactly the cisely to 586 A. D., but locates ItS P aCdi~ 0 t~ ~;"iature a figure of

d' the De ca IOn UU>~ d region of Syria, we fin m. 1 ,hair short black beard, an Christ whose head, with its thick cur Y Type B (PLATE X,40).69

. kably close to our • D h-triangular face, IS remar. . . t and dated to 634 A. ., a" a Another manuscript, Synan :n scn

illP '1 to our Type B.70 The type

h d f Chnst st c oser miniature \\'ith a ea 0 3 aris 1922 , pp. 562-88. .. 66 Cf H Vincent & F. M. Abel, Jerusai:;:rI;I 'e~ p~mialovsky, Pravoslavm] 67 A~to;~ini Piacentini Itinerari'um X8 _ 'p 1;. For a bibliography of pre-

. 13 (f 39) 1 9.), . . Palestinskij Sbormk XII. asc .. nt's of the text, d. pp. x-Xl. 6' "~-Z~'-' . . I ding vana )" XIX wr O~ ~J~"" vieus publicatIons, me u - . ' '"'r.v xct~a.IC~?'4~O;.ta:VO<;. ": ~ <";"'J(,;'J <18 ~r P G XCV col. 349: ~OU ZCJ.t 'O'J'i eU606ciA[Lov, E7.~;,~' , • 'I' .... 19ne, "., '" ~ - -:+'~J E:x",:u-:t(Ucn~), Cf'JVO,?" • tcr~Of:\xot 8LCJ.y~a.?o'Jm'J a.u.OU ., . ' l in foto-

'A'" - .. r cmquanta Taco e au OVp·.;w. . . d' Manoscritti Mzma ~. PI III (Laur. 49 Guido Biagi Riproduzwm Z" 'ana Florence, 1914, . tipia della R. Biblioteca Med~cea L~urenzl cf. Grabar, L'iconociasme, fig. 79·

<Tood detail of this figure,. " 0 von Hememann, DHJ ~lut. 1. 56). For a 0 • the Wolfenbiittel LIb.rary ... ' I IV (II Abth., Dze .0 Codex 3, 1300 Aug., In B"b7' thek zu n oltenbiitte Handschriften dey herzogltchen l .to

62 Numismatic Iconography of Jztstinian II

appears also in a fresco from a burial-crypt at Abu-Girgeh (near Alexandria), which Morey dates as post-sixth-century (PLATE IX, 39);71 the radical difference between this type and the beardless youth who more customarily represented Christ in Alexandrian art is explained by Morey as the result of the increasing rapprochement of Egypt and Syria after Chalcedon (45I), with its accompanied infiltra­tion of Syrian monks and their foundations, as well as their theologi­cal principles, into EgypU2

The very fact that this type, although preserved in literature and memory, tended to disappear after the seventh century, When Syria fell to the Moslems, seems to provide negative evidence for its identi­fication with that area. A reflection of the type does appear again in the eleventh century, however, in a mosaic at S. Sophia at Kiev and ag~ in II64, in a. fr:sco at Nerez, and in II97, in a fresco at Nereilicy; this group was distmguished by Ainalov as the "Priest-Christ" an interpretation based upon the apocryphal tradition that Chris~ was a priest in the Temple at Jerusalem73-perhaps another indication of the indissoluble bond which seems to tie this type of Christ-image to its Palestinian origins.

This is a very different type of Christ, with very different associa­tio~s and imp~catio~s, from the imperial Rex Regnantium image whIch we ~st mveshgated. Why this type should have appeared together WIth the other on the coins of Justinian II and what the total significance of the various combinations of fi~res may have been, can only be determined when we know what the motives for Justinian II's innovations were in the first place, and what the cir­cumstances were in which these innovations Were made.

Augusteischen Handschriften, B. I), \Volfenbiittel 1884 86 '" ~ I· . f h ' , p. I ,~,o. 204.).

oweI:0:,session o. a p otograph of this miniature to the kind generosity of Prof. \\ eltzmann, who has more recently photographed an th '1'" t.' . . tu h . h 0 er lV ..... con allllllg ~ illlllla re s O~Wlllg t e s~me type of Christ: this is the only figural miniature lllh~hhe dGotSpefrls lllt thhe )'Ianamhana Church at Diyarbakr in Turkey. This MS., w .IC a es om . e sevent . c~ntury also, is a product of the Syrian sphere of lIuluence. There IS also a mmrature of this type of Christ in an unpublished Synan MS. of the twelfth or thirteenth century from th S h C II ti Berlin. , e ac au 0 ec on,

n Mllllicipalite d'Alexandrie, Rapport sur la marche d . d ]1.1 • I9I2 , Alexandria, 1913, PI. vn. Xl servIce u llsee en

: C. R., Mo~ey, Earf?' ,Christian Art, .Princeton, 1942, pp. 81-2. D. "\. Ainalov, Nouveau type IconO!rraphique d Chri t" S . .

K d k · I "u s emlnanum on a ovtanum I , 1928, pp. 19-24 & PI. III. '

COIN LEGENDS

In concluding our analysis of the various representations and sym­bols employed on the coins of Justinian II, we need to consider the legends which accompanied these types, since they can frequently illuminate the pictorial representations on the coins. We have al­ready seen this in the case of the "Rex Regnantium" inscription, which seems to be directly applicable, in its first occurrence, to a specific Christ-image employed by Justinian II, and hence was ap­plied only by transference to his second Christ-type. l

As regards the legends used on the first and last of Justini~~ II's coin types, on which he (and later his son as well) wears the traditIOnal chlamys-covered costume familiar on earlier imperial issues, we have established that the inscriptions also follow general usage on both obverse and reverse.2

The same cannot be said of the two legends associated with the emperor's appearance in loros-costume, on the reverses of his :wo Christ-image coins: The legends he used with his name on these corns, "Justinianus Servus Christi" and" Justinianus )iultos Annos,." ~ave no direct prototypes in Byzantine numismatic practice up to this tIme, just as the coin types with which they are associated are co.mpletely unprecedented. They are identifiable, however, as acclamatlO~s, and as such may be found in the Book of Ceremonies.3 But to establish the context in which these legends were selected to accompany these particular coin types (or, perhaps more accurately, to discover why these legends dictated themselves as the inevitable ones to accompany these types), it will be necessary to delve into the background of the phrases themselves. 4

1 Cf. above, pp. 47ff. 2 Cf. above, p. 31. 3 Cf. below, pp. 67 f. . in 4 Particularly useful are the studies of the subject by P. E. Schranrm, . Kaiser Rom und Renovatio I, Leipzig, 1929, pp. 141-6, repeat~d .,w~h?Ut: signi.fi~ant alteration in an article, "Der Titel, 'Serv~s Jesu Chrirsti , a~ser Ottos III," B.Z. XXX, 1929-30, pp. 424-30. Al~o of ~tere5t IS K. SchmIt:, Urspnmg und Geschichte dey Devotionsformeln bls ZZt zMBr A utnahn;e m dze friinkische K6nigsurkunde (Kirchenrechtliche Abhandlungen 8r, ed. L. Stutz), Stuttgart, 1931.

Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

The appelation "Servus Christi" is, of course, but a variant of the broader expression, "servant of God," which may be found in the Old Testament, where it was applied particularly to Moses. 5 Subsequently, the Apostles frequently termed themselves the "Servants of Christ" in their epistles: we find the formula used by Paul,6 ""ho once included his assistant Timothy,7 as well as by James,s Peter,9 and Jude.!o \Vith this sort of precedent, it is not surprising that this expression of humility should have been popular as a term of self-description among all orders of the Christian clergy. In addition, the phrase seems to have been a favorite with Constantine the Great, according to the Vita Constantini, which quotes him as using it on numerous occa­sions;II it has been the opinion of some modern scholars that Constan­tine was particularly influenced in his choice of this phrase by the Old Testament, and the connection of the term with the person of l\loses.12

As ar: ex~ression of humility, the phrase continued to enjoy great populanty III the "Vest, largely under the influence of St. Augustine, who admonished the mighty of this world to remember their human frailty.1

3 The title was used by Pope Hilarus (461-8),14 and an interest­

ing variant survives in which Pope John VII (70 5-7) declares him­self to be the servant of the mother of God.1S It was in the same spirit that Pope Gregory I, at the beginning of the seventh century, adopted for himself the title "servlls servorum Dei,"16 which has en­s Deuteronomy xxxiv, 5; Joshua i, I; etc. 6 Romans i, I; Titus i, 1.

7 Philippians i, 1.

8 James i, I.

1I II Peter i, 1.

10 Jude i, I.

11 Eusebius, r:ita Const.al/fini I, 6, ed. Heikel, Die griechischen christlichen Schrzftsteller vII, LeIpzIg, 1902 P 9' )<ccl <I !I~'J aLec ~t-' "e' e ' -." , , , _' • • - "'.-;;. h v. 0; xo:r. cx.yrx o~ sp o:7t'CU V,

--rou-:-> ,E7':?o:~e XCLt._ EX~PU-=:e' aOU~~GV &'r.'~Z?U~ &r=OXClAfr)\' x:xt OEpa.'i:O'J7!7. '70U 7':cq.l.-~CCcrtA"W<;. °fLo).oyw'J. ECCU-:-OV •• Ibid. II, 29, p. 54, in a purported letter of Constantme, referrmg t~ hilllself: u;co as -:-ij} eE;:±'-:OV-:-t -:-oG 0EOU. The phrase recurs throughout the l zta Constantini. ,. Cf. Y·· Schultze, "Quell_enuntersuchungen zur Vita Constantini " Zeitschrift fur Kzrchengeschzchte Xlv, 1894, p. 530 • ' 13 Civitas Dei V, 24. 14 De Rossi, op. cit. Ill, p. 147, n. 12: Christi famuli H'la' . . 15 Ibid III 8 _ . . . '" I n eplScopl.

. .' p. 41 ,n. I;). ~ati Del gerutricis servus Johannes indignus epis­copus fecIt domus sancte Del genitricis.

~s According .t~ his ~iographer, Joannes Diaconus, Gregory assumed the title m order to gn e a le"son ill humilIty to his contempo . J hn Pt' h f -C t tin 1 h h d . ran, 0 , a narc 0

ons an op e, w 0 a Just assumed the title of o~umenical patriarch:

Coin Legends

joyed almost chief place among all these epithets ever since in the favor of all ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy,!7 The same tradition was present in the ruling class of the laity in the West even before Carolingian times,IS and continued in use throughout the middle ages; a particularly interesting occurrence was the assumption by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III of the title "Servus Jesu Christi et Romanorum imperator augustus secundum voluntatem Dei salva­torisque nostrique liberatoris" in 998 A. D. when he was beginning a campaign against the heathen Slavs of Poland.19

In the Eastern Roman Empire, on the other hand, where the posi­tion of the imperial authority in relation to the church was somewhat different, the title in its various forms, although not unknown among the less exalted,2O was never common in the imperial titulature at any time, and seems to be unprecedented before its use on Justinian II's coins. In its Greek form, it was employed on coins by the last Icono­clast emperor, Theophilus,21 while Theodore the Studite applied the contrary epithet "Slave of Satan" to the Iconoclast Emperor Leo V.22

How, then, are we to explain the use of this phrase at precisely t~is time? It has been suggested that its introduction in the Byzantme coinage came about, not from Christian precedent at all, but from the

Vita S. Gregorii II, I, in :Migne, P. L. LXXV, col. 87. ~ut :whereas it is true that Grecrory used the phrase frequently while Pope m hIS correspon.dence and his h"'omilies (Homily on Job, Migne, P. L. LXXV, col. 510; Homily?n Ezekiel, P. L. LXXVI, col. 785; Homily on the Gospels, P .. L. LXX\I, col. 1075), it is equally certain that he had already used the epIthet to.refe,~ to himself before becoming Pope: " ... ego Gregorius servus servorum Del ... is to be found in a monastic charter of donation, dated 28 December 587 .~. D. : d. S. Gregory, Registrum epistolarum, ed. L. M. Hartmarul, 1~[. G. H., eplstolae

II, appendix I, p. 437· . b I Led 17 Cf. the article, "Servus Servorum Dei," by Leclercq, ill Ca ro - ercq, Dictionnaire XV1, cols. 1360-3. . 18 Deer cites interesting examples of the usage from both. the Lombard kings of Italy and the Asturian kings of Spain, between the eIghth and the tenth centuries: Schweizer Beitriige XIII, 1955, p. 107, n. 269 & 271. H Cf the works of Schramm cited above, n. 4.

. .. "'k' Be r 192- p 13 for 20 Cf. Th. Schmit Die Koimesls-K~rche von .,,2 a'la, r m, /,. , , . nk H akin'h 11 hinrelf the slave of an altar inscription wherem the mo • y t os, ca s" .

the Vircrin Grabar L'icOlloclasme, p. 42, refers to seals, presumably not imperial, ;n which' the owners refer to themselves by this fonnula m one style or another. 21 Cf. BivIC II, PI. XLVIII, 18. . . '.., 22 Theodore Studite, Epistolae II, 75, III :Y:hgne, P. G. XCIX, col. 131- A.

5

66 Numismatic Iconography oj Justinian II

~osle~~;23 it is pointed out that on some Moslem coins of about this time, It IS customary for the Caliph to call himself "Slave of Allah."24 ~hes~ are, of course, the Arab coins based upon models of the Byzan­tme ~ssues of Heraclius and Constans II, commonly called Arab-By­zantme, ~bout which we shall have more to say in the next chapter. 21>

The fact IS that the title "Slave of God" had been one of the attri-butes of the caliphs since the death of Mohammed· l·t . . .. ' occurs In an m:c~p~IOn of ~oawiyah, dated to A. H. 58, or 677-8 A. D.26 Its ongm IS Koramc, for Mohammed refers to himself as the Slave of God.27 At another point in the Koran, interestingly enough in telling ~he apocry?hal ~tory of the birth of Jesus, the narrator sa;s that the mfant Chnst cned out, "I am the servant of God!"28

Further investigation however reveals that th . ill ." e expressIOn was ~t more co~o~ m A:ab usage. The Arabic word for "Slave of God" IS Abdull~; thIS IS easily recognizable as one of the most common of Mos!em gI:e~ names, as was already the case by the time of Abd el-Malik.29 Similar "slave-of" . . . names, moreover, were In use in pre-~or7c tnnes, s.o that Mohammed's practice is really a continuation o a ~ng-established Arab tradition, rather than an inn t· f great di t .gnifi ova IOn 0 Cali h mnne a e:1 cance; the antagonist of Justinian II, the

. p Abd el-Malik, had a name which meant "Slave f th K" " ~Vlt~~ i:lication to any specific ruler, mundane or c~lesti~ -:f~g ~t e b: ere were Abd-el- other names, especially of the pag;n gods o a 1a,. such as Abd el-Ilah.30 So common was this type of terminol­ogy, that It seems rather unlikely that its use on an extremely limited

231. von Karabacek, as in Kusejr Amra Vienn 24 G. F. Hertzberg Geschichte der B' .. a, I907, Text, p. ZI9· (W. Oncken, Allge~eine Geschichte . YEz~nttlnder und des osmanischen Reiches p. 63. m mze arstellungen II, 7), Berlin, 1883,

15 Cf. John Walker A Catalogue of th iVl h Mt~seum II, A Cat~logue of the Arab-~" u ~mmadan Coins in The British Coms, London, I956 , esp. pp. xxxvii Iv y:;:ntzne ant! Post-Reform Umazyad L'iconoclasme pp 67-7' discu t'h" ~2-42, Nos. 104-36 , etc. Grabar, ,. .., sses IS senes a d k . . contributions to the study of th . n ma es some mterestmg 28 G. C. Miles" Earlv Islamic I e lc~n~graphy of so~e .of the issues. of Near Easte~n Studies VII 19 n;cnp ~ns near Ta'if m the Hijaz," Journal 27 Surah 72 , Verse 19. ,4 , pp. -36-41.

Z8 Surah 19, Verse 31. 29 For example, the great foe of the U . dullah Ibn az-Zubeir; ct. below _ mayyads m the Hejaz was named Ab-30 I . d bed' p. ,2.

am met to Dr. G. C. Miles for much of the foregoing information.

Coin Legends

series of coins, of almost exclusively local circulation, would have been even noticed at the Byzantine court, much less imitated on the

imperial coinage.31

This question of the relationship between the Byzantine and the Moslem coinages is only a part of the larger problem of possible numismatic influences between the two world powers, which we pro­pose to examine, however tentatively, in the following chapter; in the meantime, it should not appear too much like anticipating our con­clusions to indicate that, if chronology is any guide, there is very little likelihood that the coins of Type II on which the "Servus Christi" legend was used were issued as a reply to any action of the Moslems, or were dependent in any way upon Moslem influence within Byzantium; in the circumstances, it is far more probable that the inspiration for the legend, as well as for the iconography, is to be found within the purely Christian tradition of the Byzantine state, than as a consequence of foreign and completely alien developments. An imperial tradition for the use of the tenn "servus Christi" did exist, if only in the usage of Constantine the Great; and it is to such a precedent that we would expect Justinian II to have turned, rather than to that of his contemporary rival, the Moslem Caliph Abd

el-Malik. The acclamation "Multos Annos" is by no means as rare in the

imperial tradition as is the phrase "servus Christi." Acclamations for longevity, including this one, had an important part in the imperial ritual as far back as the first century A. D. ;32 nor were they by any means new at that time, having a long history of Hellenistic usage behind them. In the Byzantine epoch, the Latin phrase "~Iultos Annos" was translated into its Greek equivalent 7t0/.l-01 l.p6'Jo

L, in

which form it recurs throughout the Book of Ceremonies; but in its archaic Latin fonn, quaintly graecisized into 01 '!-o·j),::OU(J'X'/O'., it was preserved in the special ceremonials of the great festivals of the Christian year,S:; as well as among the Latin acclamations chanted by

the Chancellors of the Quaestor at Christmas.34

31 This is also the conclusion reached by Grabar, L'iconociasme, pp. 70-1.

32 Cf. A. Alfi:ildi, "Die Ausgestaltung des monarchischen Zeremoniells," Rom.

}"litt. 49, 1934, pp. 86-8, esp. p. 88, n. 2.

33 De Cer. I, I, ed. Vogt I, p. 16. 34 Ibid. I, 83 (74), ed. Vogt II, p. I69·

5*

68 Nztmismatic Iconography oj Justinian II

T~ere is still.another and particularly interesting use of the accla­~a:lOn, hear~ m a series of acclamations and responses chanted on van~~s occasl.ons t~ the emperor or emperors: it was heard at Christ­m~, at the. Impenal coronation,36 on the eve of a great reception 37 ~~ic~n ~ van~ty of o.ccasions in the Hippodrome.38 This acclamatio~,

was delivered m verse form, reads in part as follows:

7tOMO~ U!L~v Xp6VOL

oE 6- ' - \ "POC7tOVTe:C; ,ou XUpLOV.

hIt thubs combine~, ~ one expression, the words of both the legends we

ave een exanunmg!

:: Ib~d. I, 2, ed. Vogt I, p. 29. "7 Ib~d. I, 47 (38), ed. Vogt II, p. 4. :8 Ib~d. I, 71 (62), ed. Vogt II, p. 88. • Ibid. I, 78 (6g) & 80 (-1) ed Vogt II

I ,. , pp. 124, 126, 134-5, 155 and 156.

JUSTINIAN II AND THE MOSLEM REFOlli."\I

As we have just noticed, the suggestion has been made that the design, and particularly the inscriptions, of the new coin types of Justinian II were created under the influence of the contemporary coinage of the Moslem Caliphate. This theory is only one aspect of a more general thesis that the entire motivation behind Justinian II's creating a new coinage was the Byzantine reaction to the reform of Moslem official procedures instituted by Abd el-Malik during the first reign of Justinian II.

The hypothesis that the Moslem reformed coinage met with opposi­tion, and hence reaction, by the Byzantine imperial authorities finds support in the account given by Theophanes of the quarrels leading up to the battle of Sebastopolis in 692,1 among which he cites side-by-side with Abd el-Malik's objections to the deportation of the populace of Cyprus to the mainland, Justinian II's refusal to accept gold coins struck by the Moslems in payment of the tribute owing to him.2 Neither of our other major sources, however, offers this as a cause for the war: Nicephorus imputes the rupture solely to justinian's hubris;3 Michael Syrus gives the deportation of the population of Cyprus to the Byzantine mainland as its only cause.!

The very fact that it was the Moslems who invaded Roman ter­ritory, rather than the other way round, would indicate that it was the former \vho felt themselves to be the aggrieved party. It is difficult to see how this would have been the case had the only point at issue been the question of whether or not Justinian II would accept their coins in payment of the tribute he had exacted from them a few years earlier. If he found their coins unacceptable, and refused the tribute in that form, it was scarcely the Arabs' respon­sibility to force it on him, but rather his problem to compel them to offer it in what he deemed proper form; similarly, if the emperor

1 Cf. above, p. 10.

2 Theoph., p. 365. This account is accepted at its face value by Gibb, Encyc. of Islam 12, p. 77, and by Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. 67-8· 3 Niceph., p. 36. • klich. Syr., p. 470.

69

70 Numismatic Iconography of J~tstinian II

considered it objectionable for the Moslems to strike coins other than imitations of his own types (as they had been doing), then it was up to him to stop them. In short, Justinian II's refusal of the Moslem tribute could under no circumstances be construed as a reason for them to attack him. Nor can we see any economic or other reason the Moslems might have had to attempt to force their gold money into circulation within the Byzantine Empire. By contrast, not only does the Cyprus affair provide adequate motivation for a Moslem protest, but it explaius quite comprehensibly the actual sequence of events as they took place.

But what, then, was this newly-minted money of Abd el-Malik's? Theophanes appears to be alluding, and has been taken to refer, to the Moslem reform coinage, which had its part in the general policy of Islamization begun within the Caliphate by that monarch.

When the Caliphs, upon the total collapse of the Sassanian power, took over the structure as well as the territories of the Persian Empire, they found themselves so suddenly in command of so enor­mous an administrative system that it was obviously more desirable to permit the old forms and methods of routine government to con­tinue, rather than to attempt a revision of procedures according to their Own nomadic customs. Even more was this true in the lands they conquered from the Byzantine Empire, Syria and Palestine and Egypt, where Christian scribes and account ants sustained a government whose chiefs could scarcely read or write, and certainly could not count.

Illustrative of this stage in the history of the Moslem state is the story of Athanasius Bar Goumay, an Edessan Christian who control­led the administration of Egypt under the titular charge of Abd el-~lalik's brother, Abd el-Aziz. Athanasius grew so wealthy in this work, albeit with full honesty of action, that he was able to build or repair many Christian churches in both Egypt and Syria. When he returned home at the end of his service, Moslem enemies denounced him to the Caliph for having appropriated all the riches of Egypt for his own private gain. Abd el-Malik, unperturbed, summoned the Edessan to his presence, and told him that it was not deemed suitable for a Christian to be quite so rich. So Athanasius gave the king money until the latter said to stop, and Athanasius went away still a very wealthy man. 5

5 Ibid., pp. 475-7.

Justinian I I and the lYlostem Reform

k t in Greek and all figures re­At this period, a~ recordst were

k:

e Greek ;umeral system. As

corded in the unWIeldy, ~u wor tafi ~ made no attempt to disturb d . t y the Caliphate a rs b regar s 1. s mo:n

e , which had existed in tacit agreement e­

the numIsmatIc status quo . The former being in pos-t' nd the Sassanlans. ,

hveen the Byzan mes a f ld known to the ancient world, session of the major sources o?~ ore d as bullion far beyond the struck coins of that metal, whic p~sse the other hand struck a

f th . Empire·6 the Sassamans, on , . . borders 0 err : . th the Byzantines, while theIr far greater volume of silver coms a~

. . d in token quantIty. gold comage was Issue H' th Caliphs continued to strike

Until eighty ~ears after th~ d egt~~ t:e utmost fidelity from the silver coins which we:e cople dWd

i d margm' al inscriptions in Arabic . t to which were a e

Sassaman ypes, 11 th names of issuing governors, giving religious formulae :;: ~~ a~ate eseems to have begun coining etc.

7

In gold and bronze, t. e. .r tion of the Byzantines, especially somewhat later, and then m lID1 a 11

8 f H r us and of Constans . hi the types 0 erac 1 . h took the initiative to alter t s

It was Abd el-Malik, however: : 01

to weaken the hold of the 'state of affairs, and, more partIc farh!' dministration. In 8I A. H.

the rank and file 0 IS a ld be 'Christians upon. that all state records shou (7

00 A. D.) h~ t~ok senous steps ~~ ~~~ even before this he had be~n

kept in ArabIC, mstead of G:eek'f t tally new "iconoclastic" com­the process by the introd~ctlOn °T: 0 coins re~ounced the stylized

. both gold and silver. ese . .age, m ... d Byzantine Trade during the Szxth 6 Cf H L Adelson, Light Wezght Sohdl an d Monographs, No. 13

8), N. Y.,

d' S . enth Centuries (Numismatic Notes an, hich this situation could be .an ev. , . information on ways m w 1957, for illummating . t' 0" authorities. I turned to the extra profit of the mm m" adan Coins in the British Museum . 7 John "\Valker, A Catalogue of t~e 1'01 u~amm London 194

1, is the best and most

A Catalogue of the Arab-Sassaman C01nage" ,

u -to-date study of this c~inag~. 1 Arab Dinars," American Numts-81-or the gold, d. G. C. Miles, Some Ear y No.1, & PI. XVII, 1; also I. matic Society Museum Notes ~II, 1~48, P;, 9~ritish 1t,fuseum Quarterly, XX, \Valker "Two Arab-Byzantinel Dfiml:sf the Arab-Byzantine coinages lSCs?-r-

' 6 Now the who e e 0 t th ~Mullammadan oms 1955, pp. 15-1

• form in 'Walker's A Catalogue a e t" and Post-veyed in true corpus 1 of the Arab-Byzan tne rOO) in the British Museum II. A ca:~ ague 1-83 (and Introduction, pp. XV-lll ,

Reform Umaiyad Coins" London, 19i1i;~ known coins of this type" II 'a which includes all published ~d,o. auctore Imamo Ahmed tbn fa 1 9 J. de Goeje, Liber exp,u/:.nattW;::U;::;;'7b:

mYahya al Baladhuri, The Book of ibn Djabihr al-Beladsort (L e.,

,Conquests), London, 1863~, p. 30r.

72 Numismat-ic Iconography of Justinian II

symbols, the ruler-images, modified crosses and fire-altars, which had characterized the Moslem coinage until then; instead, they bore merely the Arabic inscriptions of identification, and pious expressions, arranged in conformity with the shape of the coin.

As late as 84 A. H. (703 A. D.), Arab-Sassanian coins were still being struck ;10 but the beginning of the new coinage dates never­theless from several years earlier. The literary information in the Arab chronicles which has a bearing on this problem has been as­:embled with a view to giving us a general picture of the Reform Itself, so that we can arrive at some general consensus of the opinions of the sources.u Of the seven Arab historians who refer to the Reform two d~te it in 74 A. H. (693-4 A. D.); two date it in 75 A. H.; and three III yet the following year.

What is especially clear from all these texts is the fact that the history of the Reform was indissolubly linked with the career of el­Hajjaj ibn-Yusuf, Abd el-Malik's great schoolmaster-turned-general, \~ho was the one per~on most responsible for the triumph of the l:may-yad cause over Its opponents in the contest for the Caliphate between the years 685 and 695 A. D.

In 692, Hajjaj was at last victorious over Abdullah ibn-az-Zubeir

who had hitherto held Mecca and the Hejaz against the Umayyad party. Two ye.a~s were then spent by Hajjaj in repairing the damage \,,:ou~ht by cI~il w~r (?e had not hesitated to bombard the Holy CIty Itself dunng hIS sIege, and even the sacred Kaaba had been grav~ly damaged). It was only in the year 75 A. H. that he was a~poIllted governor ~f. Iraq, where his talents were required to deal w1th the turbulent spmts of the citizens of the CI'ty f K f .

.. . 0 u a, III an area where the Shute partIsans of Ali were still numerous 12 It' I f '. . IS C ear rom the chroruclers that It was only after Hajjaj had taken command in Iraq that th,e Reform coinage was instituted' thl' ~ b' th th . , ;" emg e case, e effectIve date of the Reform must be placed at th Ii t . 6 ~ A D ~ A H 13 ' e ear es ,Ill 9:> . ., or 7:> .1.. •

\Ve have no more reIi~ble evidence, of Course, than that provided by the dated ),Ioslem corns themselves' and thi- 'd d t

' ;" eV! ence oes no 10 \Valker, Catalogue II, p. lui, n. 4. 11 Cf. H. Sauvaire, iV1atiriaux pour servir Ii l'hist' d l . . la metro[ogie musulmane (extract from ozre ~ ~ numzsmatzque et 12 Cf Gibb loc cit and V-alke C t I the Journal Aszatzque), Paris, 1882. _. ,.., " r, a a ogue I, p. L'Civ. 13 \\ alker, Catalogue I, pp. cxiviU-cxli.'C.

J 1,tstinian I I and the ,L110slem Reform 73

contradict the information given by the chronicles. The first in­disputable and wholly reformed dinar (gold piece) appears at Damas­cus, dated 77 A. H. ;14 the earliest known reformed dirhem (silver) is dated two years later.1S

This chronological information makes it reasonably certain that the Moslem Reform coinage cannot have been a factor contributing to the rupture of Arab-Byzantine relations which took place in 69I A. D., and to the battle of Sebastopolis in 692, at a time when our sources specifically state that Hajjaj was still conducting his cam­paign in the Hejaz. The date of the battle is placed in the latter year, and the rupture of relations in the former, by Theophanes, whose chronology at this period is fixed with adInirable precision by his mention of a solar eclipse only two years later. This was the eclipse of A. M. 6I86, which took place at the third hour on Sunday, the fifth of October (Hyperberetaios according to Theophanes, a Macedonian month-name rarely used in Byzantine writings).16 This corresponds exactly with the empirical eclipse-tables set up by modem mathema­tical computation, according to which an eclipse occurred on a date corresponding to October fifth, a Sunday, in 693 A. D.~· A chart of the path of totality, moreover, shows that the eclipse reached maxinmm at Constantinople (it was not total there, but to the south, in a path across Asia Minor, the Hellespont, ),Iacedonia includfng Thessalonika, and the Balkans) between 8:30 and 9:00 a. m., a tIme corresponding closely to the "third hour."lB

In the circumstances, it is equally improbable that the ),Ioslem Reform coinage could have had, per se, any direct influence upo.n the issue of new coins such as Types II and III by Justinian II. Corns of these types, although not so numerous as those of Type I, the other type attributed to his first reign, are still sufficiently common to indicate that thev must have been issued well before the very end of that reign; yet the :Moslem Reform was begun so very sh~rtly before his downfall in 695, if it preceded that event at all, that It .'Nould. be difficult indeed to imagine how so complex a procedure of mventlOn

14 Ibid. II, p. lUi, & p. 84, Xo. 186. 15 Ibid. II, p. liii, & p. 104, Xo. Kh. 4 (in Cairo). . 16 Theoph., p. 367; the eclipse is also menhoned by llfzch. Syr., p. 47+ '. 17 J. Fr. Schroeter, SPezieller Kanan der zentralen Sonnen- lInd iUond{iMter­nisse, Kristiania, 1923, Tafel XII. 18 Ibid., Karte 12 b.

74 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

and execution could have been carried through during the period of a few short months which is all we may allow for the creation of these wholly original designs.

One other possibility of a way in which Moslem coins might have provoked a Byzantine reaction remains to be considered: this is the possible influence of Moslem coins which were not the actual reformed dinars, but Abd el-Malik's previous tentative issues of gold in free imitation of earlier Byzantine types.19 Although the earliest dated example of this sort of Arab gold coin was struck only in 74 A. H. (6<n-4A. D.),20 it is generally accepted that certain of the undated issues, and particularly the type with three standing figures, modelled on the coins of the latter part of the reign of Heraclius,21 are of a slightly earlier date. Similarly, in the silver, various experiments to­ward the development of new types seem to have been made just before the actual Reform itself, with two specimens dating from the year 75 A. H. having been noted.22

The principal argument against this thesis is the extreme scarcity ·of examples of this coinage, as well as the wide variety of types found among the relatively few surviving specimens.23 This was plainly a 19 This is the theory advanced by R. S. Lopez in his article "Mohammed and Charlemagn~: A Revision," Specu!um XVIII, 1943, pp. 14":"38, esp. pp. 24-6. Lopez combmes Arab and.By.zanti~e sources to arrive at a new interpretation of th~ events of 692, begmnmg WIth the question of watermarks on paper, mentio~ed below, .p. 76. In the outcome, Lopez sees the Moslem Reform as a step which reconCiled the Byzantines to the Arabs, and mollified feelings which had been exacerbated by the Arab-Byzantine imitations. 20 Cf .. \Valker, Ca~alogue II, pp. v-vi. Before this coin was discovered by Dr. MIle~, the earlies~ kno"'TI dated coin was of 76 A. H.: H. Sauvaire, "La plus anCIenne monnale arabe d'Abdul-Melek," Revue de la numismatique beIge 3: IV, 1860, pp. 325-7 & PI. XV, I; and \Valker, Catalogue II, pp. 42-3, No~. ~ 13 & ~ 14· Gr~bar, L'iconoclasme, p. 68 and elsewhere, dates the begtnnmg of this effort m 73 A. H., but up until the present time no coins of this date have come to light. ' 21 Cf. \Valker, Catalogue II, p. 18, No. 54. 22 One. of th~se, .with a standing-Caliph figure on the reverse of an Arab­Sassaman com, ~ the ~ubow ColI., is published by Walker, Catalogue I, p. 25; .the other IS a .uruqu_e ~hem! described as a "mihrab" type, in the ~ol1ection of t~e Amer:can ~um~matic Society, published by George C.l\-files, ~? and. _~azah. A. Study m Early Islamic Iconography," in Archaeolo­

gu;~ On~ntal!a m l1femonam Ernst Herzfeld, Locust Valley, 1952, pp. 156-71. This com was probab!! str-u.ck at the Damascus mint. The iconography of ~se and other of the expermlental" Umayyad coins is discussed by Grabar, L iconoclasme, pp. 68 ff. .U Remarked by Walker, Catalogue II, p. 18.

Justinian I I and the Moslem Reform 75

small, token coinage, minted only for local circulation, which would scarcely have figured in international financial transactions in any important way; as the Byzantines had tolerated the Sassanians' striking such limited series of gold coins, they had no more ~eason to object to the Moslems doing the same. Nor have a~y spe~Imens of this type of coin been found in contemporary Byzantme com hoards, as Reform coins have.24 The crude modifications of the original types and legends, and the addition of a limited number of Moslem religious expressions, seem scarcely enough provocation for eith~r a war or a numismatic-iconographic revolution, even had these pIeces reached Constantinople in any large quantity, as it is highly doubtful that

they did. . .' The most reasonable conclusion open to us IS to eliminate the Arab

coins as a factor in the struggle between Justinian II and Abd el-Ma­lik, especially since a fully satisfa~tory an~ more logical casus bell~ exists in the Cyprus incident. If It be objected that Theophanes statement is too unequivocal to be wholly disregarded. (although t~ere is little about his accuracy of detail, particularly at this murky per~od, to merit such unalloyed confidence), we may suggest that pOSSIbly coins were concerned with the outbreak of hostilities, but ~hat!heo­phanes had gotten things turned round: the Arabs were obJectrng to Justinian II's new coins bearing Christ-types, rather th~ the other way round. In any case, we are obliged to c~nclude that rn ?r.der to find the stimulus which produced the new corn types of Justlrnan II,

we must look elsewhere. 25

A B "bl· ph f Byzantine Coin Hoards (Numismatic Notes 24 Cf. S. Mosser, 1 wgra y 0

and Monographs, No. 67), New York, 1935· d of 25 This is essentially the conclusion of Grabar, L'iconoclasme, P: 71

, an f \Valker, Catalogue II, p. Iv; yet Gra~ar still follows Theophanes account 0

the cause of the Battle of Sebastopohs. h imilar·t ation in It might be remarked in passing that a somew at s SI U '. h

which a great deal had been taken for granted on vague ass"umpti~~s WhiC d have proven upon examination, insusceptible of proof, eX1st~:vr . refgar

, 1 inti pon Leo Ill's decISIon m avor to the question of direct Mos em uen~e u. . earlv "'1oslem of his Iconoclastic measures. For an objective evaluation of f p •. -tin .

K A C C 11 "The Lawfulness 0 am g m iconoclastic attitudes, d. . . . reswe, 1 Kitz· 's Early Islam" Ars Islamica XI-XII, 1946, pp. 159-66. Cf. ksa sof L dnmgererin

, VIII 34 and the remar 0 a comments D. O. Papers , 1954, p. I'd f th Edict , . II 9-35 The most recent stu Y 0 e

MediaevalStudzes ,1940 , pp. 12 . . Ed· t f th Caliph Yazid II of Yazid is A. A. Vasiliev's "The Iconoclastic IC 0 e od rr: A. D. 721," D. O. Papers IX-:-~, 1956 , pp. 23:-47· The cO=~~t °i~en:es opinion, among both ByzantlUlSts and ArabISts, would

76 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

Before we do so, however, we must make one further remark. Now that we have established a rough date for the institution of the Mos­lem Reform coinage, and have tentatively assumed the priority of Justinian II's new coins over that Reform, it is tempting to ask whether the opposite influence might not have been operative: whe­ther, that is, Abd el-Malik's iconoclastic measures might not have been at least accelerated, though not necessarily au fond caused, by the appearance of these coins bearing the portrait of Christ, which it would have been repugnant, at the very least, for a faithful Moslem to use?

There are one or two passages in the Arab historians, as a matter of fact, which might, freely interpreted, give credence to this view. One is in al-Baladhuri, describing how the Byzantines bought papyrus from Egypt with their gold money.26 According to this oft-repeated story, Abd el-Malik introduced the practice of using pious Moslem phrases in the protocols which were inscribed on these papyri to guarantee their authenticity; the king of the Romans objected to this, and demanded that it be stopped, or else he would place insulting mention of the Moslems' prophet on the coins. And so Abd el-Malik made his own coins instead. In some ways, this sounds more like a post facto rationalization of the course of events, than an accurate description of the way things happened at the time; but the idea that Abd el-Malik initiated his new coins as a result of the appearance of Byzantine gold bearing an image unacceptable to the faithful Moslem, is a persuasive one.

Another document, cited at second hand, ascribes to one Picendi, Coptic bishop of Keft, a description of the Arabs taking the Byzantine gold coins which bore the Cross and the image of Christ, effacing this figure and symbol, and writing instead the name of their prophet and of their caliph.2; There can be little doubt that a good deal of the Moslem gold coinage-if not almost all of it-was produced by melt­ing down or restriking Byzantine issues, as the lower weight standard of the dinar in relation to the solidus suggests.

flowed in both directions, while there was ample justification for the steps taken in the native tradition of each side. 26 De Goeje, crp. cit., p. 2{0. Cf. Walker, Catalogue II, p. liv. 27 E. Quatremere, .IUmoires giographiques et histcryiques sur l'Egypte et sur quelques con tries voisines I, Paris, ISII, p. 343. The pertinence of this passage was indicated to me by Dr. Miles.

Justinian I I and the Moslem Reform 77

The non-Arabist can only raise a question of thi~ sort; but the problem clearly merits more thorough examinat~on, III terms of the evidence on the Islamic side, than it has yet receIved.28

28 This would seem to be implied by 'Walker, Catal~gue II, p. lv, as.~·eU a~ by Grabar, L'iconoclasm~ 1~ ~':vi!c~~~~fJ, ~~i~l~;e~, ~~.a2:5e~. \~~'t~e cotuhrse

h: Itdoc~turs'igf~~ e:e

a w~ll' to note that Macdonald states erroneously on <> er an, 1 m h . f Michael I It i-not 2 S that the head of Christ reappears on t e corns o. 1 ."

~~tiI the reign of Michael III, as we have noted, that thIS takes place.)

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE COINS OF JUSTINIAN II

If the political events of Justinian II's first reign fail to provide any convincing reason for the introduction of the portraits of Christ onto his coins, there is another sort of event from that same period to which these numismatic innovations may be linked. This was pointed out two decades ago by Grabar, who wrote, "Un concile qu'un empereur avait reuni en 692, dans son palais, s'etait montre hostile a la doctrine romaine et, en matiere d'art, avait ordonne la representation obliga­toire du Christ, sous ses traits physiques; l'empereur qui avait pris l'i~tiative de ce concile, se declarant servus Christi, s'empressa de smvre Ie nouveau canon, et fit graver sur ses monnaies cette icone de Jesus que nous venons de signaler."l

The council referred to was of course the Quinisexte, which in one of its canons concerned itself specifically with the representation of Christ, and which thus seemed to Grabar as well as to most other students of the subject of pre-Iconoclastic icon-worship2 directly re­la~ed to the nmnismatic innovations with which we are dealing. HItherto we have referred to this council only briefly, as the cause of a rupture between Constantinople and Rome.3 Now let us examine it more closely, in order to see not only the specific phrases which concern us most directly, but the general character of the council as a :vhole, with a view to understanding both the basis of disagreement WIth Rome, and the background of our own particular problem.4

The text of the Canons of the Quinisexte Council is given in full in ~Iansi, 5 and is summarized, \\""ith a certain amoUllt of commentary. m Hefele-Leclercq.6 The Canons give us, in terms of the conditions

1 L'emp~reur, p. 165, a propos of the two "historical" images of Christ on these corns. 2 Esp. Ladner in D. O. Papers \'11, 1953, p. 22 (much stroncrer than in l1fed-iaeval Studies II, 1940, p. 137). 13

3 Cf. above, pp. roff. 4 See now th~ discussion by Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. 77-91, which however does not .0bvIate our own analY'sis, since Grabar arrives at such different con­clUSIons ill regard to the physical evidence. sOp. cit. XI, cois. 921-1006.

• Op. cit. lIP, pp. 562-75.

Chronology of the Coins 79

they were intended to correct, a closely-observed though one-sided picture of the life of Byzantium at the end of the seventh century, a time when priests might take part in theatrical performances, cheer on the Blues or the Greens in the Hippodrome, or even keep houses of ill fame; when monks did not wish to be confined to their cloisters, but wandered into the cities and towns, acting not only as preachers but even as merchants or conjurors; where the laymen of the city consulted all manner of soothsayers and astrologers, and the country­men retained many of their old pagan beliefs and practices when they bore upon the daily relationship to the natural world upon

which their livelihood depended. What these disciplinary Canons reflect, however, is not truly a

world of frivolity, but a profoundly disturbed and dislocated one, when a great empire was in the act of dissolving into its component parts, tom by dissension ",""ithin and pressed by enemies ",""ithout who were not just the unlettered barbarians of earlier times, but ch.wed adherents of ways of life and thought which represented a far more serious threat to the continuity of Greco-Roman Christian culture than mere barbarism could ever have meant.

Such were the circumstances under which Justinian II summoned his Quinisexte Council, wishing to make up for the fact th~t ~o general church council had taken up the new problems of eccleSIastic

and lay discipline for over two centuries. .' .' The Canons of this Council, then, had two pnncipal obJectives: the

regularization of all Christian practices throughout the Oecumene, and the eradication of any non-orthodox elements in .Christi~ worship which might tend to endanger the purity of .t~e Fruth. Bas.IC questions of theology were not considered; the qUllllsexte ~oun~il, which was regarded at the time and afterward as a sllllple con~muatIo~ of the sittings of the Sixth Council, rested upon the the~logIcal d~C1-sions and definitions of that and the preceding oecumerucal councils. The Canons of the Quinisexte Council represented what their authors regarded as logical extensions of these definitions into the everyday

practice of the Christian faithful. . The largest single group of these Canons is, therefore, related direct-

ly to discipline within the Church itself. The purpo~ .of these ~cts was, more or less by definition, to provide for the ralSmg of ethic~ and moral standards within the body ecclesiastic. In such a council

80 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

as the Quinisexte claimin . necessity of arriving t g o~cumemcal status, there was also the should be valid for theaen~i un~:e~sat~ standard i.n each case, which

Th' . re ns Ian commumty. IS commumty the Oecum

individuals worshi ' . . ~n~, properly speaking embraces all powerful in its ve;P~:~~hnst~ lIt IS a concept of great flexibility, and of the Quinisexte Canons r an. ~~s~ness of definition. The weakness pattern upon an oecumene aY

h m elr attempt to impose too rigid a

plex to admit of h . w os~ .structure had become far too com-suc an nnpOsitlon 7 Th t'

Council was no less worth f b" . e ac. IOn of the Quinisexte was to provide in such m tYt or emg ill-adVIsed, however; its aim . ' a ers as ecclesiastical dmi' .

nage regulations for the 1 f a mstratlOn, mar-so forth, an adequate st~d::: ~:~e~~~ment ~f monastic vows, and moral character of all the 1 I or which would enhance the

c ergy. ts success in this ff rt . hi . own sphere, is demonstrated b th f . eo, WIt nIts sions of more than purely te~ or: act. th~t VIrtually all its provi­throughout the Eastern Ch hPt hi~ SIgnificance remain in effect

Simi!' . urc 0 t s day

arIy, another group of Canons . behavior of the laity ·th . concerned itself with the moral

. . ,WI a View toward di t' VIVlllg influences of pa . era ca mg both the sur-religion, Judaism 8 as ganIllsm, and t~ose of the contemporary co-

, we as correctm th which had been brought ab t b g e general moral laxity

!he most pertinent Canon:ufor ~so~er a century of political unrest. third of the whole which 1 t ,owever, are those, less than one f ,re a e to matters of hi d

o which may be connected dir tl .w0rs p an ritual, some period.9 The result of th Cech' y to t~e Chnstological thought of the d . e nstologIcal co t . . . emonstratlOn that th f n roversles, WIth theIr d e crux 0 orthodoxy 1 . . t -

ogma of the Incarnation h d be ay ~ I S adherence to the the importance of the n't' ala f en t? place mcreasing stress upon

u 0 worship' hi h related sacraments ,vere th li . ' m w c the Mass and its Christ. We find therefore :h ;mt.enactment of the Incarnation of

, ,a a rge body of the Canons are con-

: For the points of specific offense to R For an evaluation of the part I dome, cf. above, pp. II f

Iconoclasm both in Islam and B~ ayeti

by Je\\ish attitudes in the outbreak of 194~, pp. 123-34; and Grabar l,a1n um

l, d. Ladner in 2'v[ediaeval Studies II

JewlSh pra t·· ,COlI0C asme pp , 9 C Ices m art and decoratio ,. 9g-I03, on contemporary

That the Iconoclastic Contr. . n. logical controversies is sUbs:a~e;;.7t1 1; ;~sentua.lly the last of the great Christo­note 2, p. 2, above. 3' e findmg of all the scholars cited in

Chronology of the Coins 8r

cerned with regularizing the performance of the church rituals; en­hancing their sanctity through the prohibition of practices common at earlier times, which tended to diminish the exclusiveness of the ceremonial as performed by the ordained clergy; regulating the ob­servance of feasts and fasts; and in other ways emphasizing the new importance of church ritual, as a prerogative of the church hierarchy, the instrument of salvation for the Oecumene.

The purpose of all this legislation, plainly enough, was to ensure that the liturgy of the Church would be performed in one way and only one, and only by certain people, so that its meaning, particularly with reference to the Incarnation of Christ, in Both Natures and Both Wills, should never be obscured. Therefore the ceremonial of the Mass must never be confused by extra offerings, nor should its significance be obscured by rich trappings added by communicants, who think to honor the Body of the Lord, but instead dishonor Him with gifts of base dead matter.

Because of this, the Quinisexte Council, although the direct sequel of the Fifth and Sixth Councils, finds itself more closely allied to the theological discussions of the Middle Ages, between and within both the Eastern and the "Vestern Churches, when practice and ritual be­came more and more the subject, instead of the abstract conceptions of the nature of divinity which had been the concern of the first church councils.

It is among these Canons which have to do with the regulation of worship that we may find the two which particularly concern the present study. The first of these is Canon 73, the text of , .. hich is as follows: "Since the lifegiving cross has shown us the way to salvation, we ought to apply every care to give the proper honor to that through which we have been saved from the ancient fall. Wberefore, bestowing upon it reverence in mind, speech and sensation, we order that the signs of the cross made by some people on the ground should utterly disappear, lest the victorious trophy be insulted by trampling under­foot. Therefore we decree that henceforward those who make the sign of the cross on the ground should be excommunicated."l0 10 Tou ~(i)01:ot.oi3 G":'t2'Jeolj a€£~~v-;~ T,fl,'i:v -:0 O'(U.o:+,~~/}'), r:ia'Z'J a-;:':tJ3-h'J r,~i; -:;.et'J~!. X~~ -:-ou -T!.tJ.'r,v -rljv i;(\Xv &:t:oo~o6\,a~ ~,. 8£' oi) O'EO'wa~ -:oS 7;O:A'Xt0U ::--:c.ti{l-:t7'j';.

06£\1 XCLt ~ x:zt ).,0Y<Z> xoi CLla6+,an -:-T,v 7'Cp0(jl(U'lljatv ct;)"riil &:-:c,,€tL0'r:-e.;, ~'J; E'J -::-~ • ~ , _ _, ., ,.." ~ 'v -" ' ~UlXtpzt,-:OU a-:-:rJ~OU ,-:'J~U~ _un"~ -:t'J~:: ~~":1XaY..£UC£"OflZ~l~ ~~~~:~J!'~~QUa:t ;~:r:-!)~~~ 7t'POGT<X't":'OtLEV. (Ot; (X.') t.L~ ~ ":<iJV ~cx(jt~oV":(Uv XCL~7t'ct~O"Et '";'0 -=--r;,; Vf.iI.:r;~ 1j:-L~\I ,:?o-

6

82 N'ltml:smatic Iconography of Justinian II

On the one hand, this interesting regulation, forbidding a practice virtually unknown in the West, may take its place in the historical crystallization of religious symbolism in the Christian world. From a general symbol of the Faith, referring sometimes to the event of the crucifixion, sometimes to the person of Christ Himself, and just as often taken as an almost abstract decorative motif which merely in­dicated a subject that was Christian in nature, the Holy Cross comes to be understood in one single guise: that of the instrument "through which we have been saved from the ancient fall." As such, it must not be desecrated by the feet of the faithful as they corne to worship.

The emphatic reiteration of this Canon at precisely this time, on the other hand, cannot but be in some way the consequence of the deci­sions of the general councils, as well as of the accelerating advance of icon-worship which the seventh century had seen.l1 In the sense that it was the instrument of salvation itself, its sanctity, like that of the Virgin Mary, is an integral tenet of the orthodox faith, an element apt to be depreciated by either extreme of heresy, Nestorianism or l\Ionophysitism, and their manifold offshoots: whether one believes in the complete unity of the person of Christ, or in His having two wholly distinct persons, the role of the Virgin as the Mother of God, an.d that of the Cross as the Instrument of Redemption (the two prilllary aspects of the Incarnation are after all Christ's Birth and Re-Birth) become less important. For in either case the divine nature of Christ (whether embracing all of Him, or but one distinct Nature) i:. n~t ,~~ncerned with these instruments: He passes through the v ~gm like water through a pipe" (Nestorian); only an "image" of ~ hangs upon the Cross (Monophysite). So, while participation in ~Ither extreme of heresy ",ill lead the individual to depreciate the mstrurnents of the Incarnation, orthodoxy, by contrast, will always tend to exalt them.

It. is fo~ this reason that the Quinisexte Council was impelled to parhculanze finally the nature of the approved representation of the

1ra.~O\l t;·J~F[~Ot:-;o .. 70U~ C~\I cb:o -:ou \i5v ":"OG O'~cr.)r·~O~ -u'- ,_, _ l..~' ''J' .. #,... , Iv •• r" oJ. • .. ov E ... t. 7<0 ~OCXC(€f. x'r:X't"ctO')(£'J-

(%,,0."-(%; O~L"OiJ.a:'1 (%?OFL~a:aO(xL. Mansi, op. cit. XI, coL 976. Act~ally, this follows a sIDlilar prohIbItion In an EdIct of Theodosius II d t d . Cd] t' , I' ". d h , a e 427. o. us mwn

. Vlll, an per aps for this reason has been generallv overlooked by com-mentators on the Quinisexte Council -11 On this cf partic la 1 K" .

d G b ' ;.f t ,u r y ItZInger, D. O. Papers v"'lII, 1954, pp. 95-II5, an ra ar,., ar yrHtm II, pp. 343-57.

Chronology of the Coins

Cross, and to specify that it must receive, and be so placed as always to receive, the reverence due it as one of these instruments.

Canon 82 of the Quinisexte Council seems to us almost a corollary of Canon 73, but it is far more important to the history of Christian art:

"On some representations of venerable icons is depicted a lamb pointed at by the Forerunner's finger, which has been accepted as a symbol of Grace, showing us in advance through .the Law the true Lamb Christ our Lord. vVhile embracing the anCient symbols and shado~s as signs and anticipatory tracings of the Truth handed down to the Church, we give preference to the Grace and the Truth, having received them as the fulfilment of the Law. Th,erefore, in or.der that the perfect should be set down before everybody' s eyes on pamt­ings also we decree that the [figure] of the Lamb, Chnst our God, who

, 12 • removes the sins of the world, should henceforward be set up ill

human form in images also, instead of the ancient lamb, comprehend­ing through Him the height of the humiliation. of G~d's W~rd, and guided towards the recollection of His IncarnatIOn, HIS PassIOn, and His Salutary Death, and the redemption which has thence accrued to the world. "13

12 The use of the word &v(%<r.1JAoliaOOCL here has led to a misun?erst~ndin? of the Canon on the part of Dom Leclercq (Hefele-Leclercq, op. c~t. III , p. ;,73, n. 3) who translating it as "erected," states that it indicates ~ consequence that 'we ,de dealing here exclusively .. ith ~ages of the c~?ss? ~. !;: the CruCI­fixion The word however is never used In the sense of rals~o the, Cross, '. , , ' " d t th " ectlon" of IDlages insofar as we can determIne, but applies Instea 0 e er .

themselves; it became the specific term referring to the restoration of the images after the end of the Iconoclasm. .' ,

The error seems to have arisen from the defective text of the ongmal m . '1' h no noun (see below). In our :\Iansi wherein the accusative artlC e -:;-ov as 1

. , " " ... ge'" Lec ercq translation we have supplied the noun as figure or Imah

, t' God': ' 't "th Lamb C ns our however read the clause to the effect that 1 was e , " his

\Vho w;s erected (actually a phrase in the genetive), leading him Into mistake. ifu '

This Canon has nothing to do with the specific scene of the cruc ~on as such and had no effect upon the artistic tradition of that scene, except In the gene;al sense that it influenced all subsequent B:fzantine representa~o~::~ Christ. In any case, as Kitzinger has shown, ZOC. CIt., the creatIve po",er~ '. theoretical interests of this period were directed. no~ toward the narratIve "ide of Christian art but toward the more purely lCOruC. , ~3 'rt:1" _ ..... t -iilv ac:r:Tw:J Etx6vCll'/ vpcx.ytti:<; &~\to~ 8a.XTUAtp "':'0;,) 7t?OOr;QtJ.o'J o£tXvurL~vo~

.J2.j ... \ov. ~.. I , 1-' e \ ~ - Of' _ ;; VOU:J~j EV~,ct ... ci~c:tL &~ E~ ":")':':0\1 '1t:xpdt,~T; ~~~ l..Ctpt.":'O~, 1:'uV Ul1 1.\10'; ~!L~V, ~ ~o~ ,'_~

4 A ~, , e' ~ - \ T -_"'I..x O' I" -'.l-OUC xa.r. ~ 7:'pou1toQa(V(a)V tXtLvo'J XFtO''':'o'J -:-ov £ov lltL<U'J. ':'Otx; ouv ~ .. \U'. ~ J-: ...... •

6*

Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

This pronouncement is of the greatest sigIIificance; it is the official sentence passed upon the symbolic representation of Christ, as it had been inherited from primitive Christian art; and sentence passed for the very reason that evolving orthodoxy, with its dogma of the Incarnation, could no longer tolerate purely symbolic representation. The Canon refers specifically to the image of the Lamb, which is here for~idden, but its effect is to forbid the use of any symbolic represen­tatIOn whatsoever of the living incarnate Christ. This sense is rein­forced by Canon 73, dealing with the use of the Holy Cross in art and decoration. The Cross had been used as a symbol for Christ Himself from early times, but in speaking of its use, the Council makes it very plain that it is referring in no way to a symbol for the Crucified, but to the Cross itself, that is to say, to an Instrument of the Passion, which is to be represented as such.14 The principle established by these Canons, then, is that, in Christian art, an object represented should stand for only one thing, that which it directly represents.15

In the case of the ~amb-image, this principle is based upon the fact that the use of this symbol to represent Christ derives from the old dispensation of the Law, that of the Old Testament and hence is no longer applicable in the present dispensation of Grac:, inaugurated

, • - 'A Il' , a"t"~, 6.l~ :"tJ~" "tJ etoc~ aUfL(3o).O: "'" "oct 7tPOxcc(lO:YfL""t"cc r.cc-ccaeaO"E:"OU~ "t":-n €y.y.).r,a[cc ",,-ccar;;,," O"€' 0 "- ~ r ~. j.

. , ., r v t, 71)" XCCpt" 7tPO,tfL6.1fL€V xcct TIjv &Af,Ile:tccv &<; ~A*"W"CC "ouou ":C%0"':7JV U7:'Oae:';clu.€Vor.. 6>C &'1 au'J -0 -EAe:tOV y.i v -cx1~ ','~ !\'" r - ,t-; "':'6.)\1 Ofr ecn.v 0'::0 \ "'&OT:7~t~ '7' _;-",," _,.. ~' e" ~P(UtL~'t'o~PYtlXtc;; ev "t'.:x:tc; CL1t':XV: -1 .. Y _ e, _ Yi'-'~ ' ..... ', \ o~ .. O!..),CLl.POV.O~T1l"cttLClp't'tCl\J"t'Ouxocr~OU&!-lVOUXp~(j't'OU ~~!..) ~e~u 1].!1-UlV ... X(x~7.., 70V avePC01:'.r.VOv XCl?:XX't'-r,pCl }Crt). E\I ':'tXtC; elxocrr.v &7t'O 70U vuv cc'.r;r. "';00 r:CXA:xtou CCu,vou OCVeta' A -~ ~ ''>'' ~)'-., I _ 0 _,' "':"Y) QUovClt 0pl.~0tLev, or. <Xtn'ot) TO 't'~,.. 't'CCCEr.vwcrecu<; uyo::; ..-'~ou .. e:~'J ~O'YO~ xa:cc'JOOUV'r~, xxt. 7t'pOC; tJoVYn1.7jV ,,:r;c; E:V O'Clcxt "'n;OAl...o;e:£~C;, TOU 't'E: 7:":xvO'JC; C(U';OU XCII. 't'OU O'W7rO[' Il ' - ,. -., _ ... 0" CCVCC .m.) XetoccycuyoUU.Z'JOt xccl -'ij~ €v-e\i!l€v ye~ofL-vr,<; ''1' x6af.L(~ &~OAu"t"P 6Ja€w~. 2\.iansi, op. cit. XI, c~ls. 9~7-80: This trans-lation and that on p. 8r are the work of Dr C A "I t h I d I

· db df . . .. 1.ango owom am eep y mete or this and other assistance '

14 It is obvious that we cann t G" . 0 accept rabar s argument L'iconoclasme p. 220, that Christ replaces and is the equivalent of th C 'th .' A ' h ' d e ross on ese coms. -Chriss ~te a"teh emo~strated, we believe conclusively, on pp. 22:ff. and 27 above

on ese coms replaces th ' f th th e emperor on the obverse rather than the ~~o~~~ em e r:::rs::; be ~ross .still appears, in its customary form, in the hand importanc~of th r~. ~ ~Istake IS the result of his unawareness of the

I e IS. C ~on between obverse and reverse on coins in ;:~:'~~d~d on Byzantine ISSUes lin particular, on which we have already

15 This is in line ~ith the O"e al bar " described by Kitzin . D ner c actenstics of the art of the period, as HonDr of Friend pp grer?~ . O. Papers VIII, r954, loco cit., and Studies in

, . 3- 50.

Chronology of the Coins 85

by the Incarnation and set forth in the New Testament.I6

The point involved is not one of sacrilege, as in the case of the use of the Cross in pavements, but rather the simple matter of clarity and pr~cision­the object of all the Canons dealing with matters o~ :vorShl?, as we have pointed out. As the council saw it, in a religIous pIcture, a personality represented was understood to be "present" in the form in which he or she walked the earth, not in the form of a symbol or

allusive reference.I7 The position of religious art in the drama of worship, th.er~fore,

is clearly thought out and presented in the acts of th~ .Qmmsexte Council, as the product of previous decisions and defi~ltI~ns of .the Church Universal. Just as the Council of Chalcedon had Its lIDlllediate repercussions in art,18 so our Canon 82 may be un~~rstood to be. the logical consequence of the anti-Monothelete defimtIOn .of ~he SIXth Council. This Council had the problem of undoing the hnking of the divine and human wills of Christ, accomplished by the Mo~othelete definitions, which it did by reference to the identity of ~IS h~an flesh which was not destroyed by being deified, and yet did contillue

t '. t di' d human both So the human appearance of

o eXlS as VIne an . Christ assumes a new importance in relation to His Godhead as well

as His humanity.I9 ..' . -His personalitv is expressed in the actIOn of HIS tw.o unIted. will.",

- .' If' th f Hi-two just as His physical aspect manifests ltse ill e unIon ~ . "

Th definition of Chalcedon followed bv the defimtIOn of the persons. e '" . Ch' t e Sixth Council, imposed the necessity of repres~ntII~g ns a:' ~n person, divine and human simultaneously, mamfestill~ the ~~ty of His two wills, in the form which made His IncarnatIOn ''lslble to

. ill' human form as He had walked the earth. Only by repre-men, I.e., h d d be senting Christ directly in this way could the ort 0 o~ ogma

. 1 uld 1 er -erve to illculcate the illustrated; the ancIent symbo s co no ong" .' . presence of the God-man \Vho had been on earth, and IS ill heaven.

We cannot exaggerate the importance of this Eig~t~'-Second Canon to its own time; it states the problem of Christian religIOus representa-

..' b t th Old and the ~ew 16 For the importance of the distinctIon made e ween e Dispensations, d. Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. 79 f. 11 as Kitzinger, D. O. 17 Cf. Ladner, in D. O. Papers v'll, 1953, pp. 1-34, as we ~ Papers VIII, loco cit. . 18 Cf. above, p. 62, and Morey, op. CLt., pp. 81-2. 19 Mansi, op. cit. XI, cols. 633-40, esp. col. 637·

86 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

tion in terms of Christology, and it was on the grounds of Christology that the Iconoclastic Controversy was fought in the course of the next century and a half.20 This Canon was remembered well and it became an important weapon for the orthodox cause in th: eighth century. Not only was it cited in the works of the orthodox polem­icists like the Patriarch Nicephorus21 and others,22 but it was actually used in the proceedings of the Seventh Oecumenical Council, in 787.23 It was, in fact, the chief legal precedent available for use by the orthodox party in demanding a general council on the subject of Iconoclasm, and as such it was the principal text, aside from biblical and patristic references, used by the Patriarch Tarasius in his inaugural synodica to the Eastern Patriarchs, calling for that Council.24

These are the facts which led Grabar to see a connection between the action of the Quinisexte Council, and the initiative taken by the imperial administration in issuing coins bearing the portrait of Christ; this relation seems to us also the most obvious and the most direct one of the possibilities open. \Vhether or not these coins were produced as the direct outcome of the Council's sessions, or were merely struck at about the same time as a result of the same thinking, the s~e intellectual climate, must remain a moot question, with the weIght of the probabilities perhaps on the side of the latter con­clusion.

Of the two types showing the image of Christ accompanied by that of the .sole emperor (as he was during his first reign), it is our Type II, on which the emperor termed himself "Servus Christi," which Grabar formerly felt showed most characteristics indicating its special con-20 Cf. above, note 9, p. 80.

u AntiY1:h~ticus. I.II, in Migne, P. G. 100, col. 421; also Apologeticus Min01' pro sacns tmagmtbus, P. G. 100, col. 836.

13 I. a. Pseudo-JOhn Damascene, Adversus Constantinum Caballinum, Migne, P. G. 95, col. 320. !13 Mansi, op. cit. XIII, cols. 40-I.

24 Th~ syn~ca_lletter was read aloud during Actio III of the Seventh Council: ManSI, op. Clt. XII, ~ols. ~1I9-27, esp. cols. II23-6. In both of these citations at the Seventh CounCIl, this Canon is described as an a ti f th Sixth C il which as we have indicated above p -9 mas cthon 0 .e hi h ~tUnC , d' , . I ," e way ill w c I was

regar ~ when it. was. held. The fact that the Quinisexte's Canons were not ratified ill the "est IS perhaps What has led Hefele-Leclercq op cit IIIS pp. 745 & 767 to "correct" Tarasius and the Eastern bishops ~ho 'might have been expected to know what they were saying. '

Chronology of the Coins 87

nection with Canon 82 ;25 we are inclined to the same conclusion. But if that is so, what are we to make of the other type, Type III, which also shows the emperor alone, but in bust form, and vvith a different Christ portrait?

In seeking an answer to this problem, the evidence of the mints from which the coins were issued is of some value. In summarizing this evidence, insofar as it is available to us, we have found that Type II occurs only in issues of Constantinople and of the Exarchate of Carthage (Sardinia), while Type III is to be found not only at these mints, but at two Italian mints, at Rome and in the South. 26

Equally significant, from this point of view, is the fact that in publish­ed records of coin hoards, coins of Type II and of Type III have never been found together. 27

Arguments ex silentio are by their nature perilous; yet a check of as many collections and cabinets as possible has confirmed the absence of any coins of Type II which might have been struck at Italian mints. This fits so conveniently with our hypothesis about the character and meaning of Type II, that it is difficult not to regard this situation as significant. We know that the Acts of the Quinisexte Council w~re never signed by the Pope-that, in fact, the first Pope to receIve them, Sergius, refused to permit their publication within hi: domain.28 Justinian II attempted to force Sergius to bow to his will, but the Pope was too strong on his home ground to be bested by the emperor's first attempt at coercion, and Justinian'S first reign ended before a~­other attempt could be made. In this quarrel, the E.xarch of Italy IS conspicuous by his absence; he seems to have kept himself aloof from

25 Cf. above, p. 78 and n. 1. More recently, of c~urse, Grabar has changed his mind: L'iconoclasme, pp. 4rf, for iconographical reasons sees th~ ~hrist of our Type III as related to the refer~nce to the "Lamb" of the 9~illls~:x.-te Canon and hence most directly issued ill consequence of the CounCil b actlOn. \Vhile' our findings about the -relations and meaninl?" of the ,~hnst-type (c~: below) are close to those of Grabar, this analogy With the Lamb. of God concept seems to us u=ecessarily rigid. More conclusively, :~e beheve that the chronology of the types precludes the possibility that COillS of Type II~ 'were issued at the time, or in consequence of the QUillISexte CounCil and Its rulings. 26 Cf. above, pp. 25 f. . '7.Mosser, op. cit., pp. 49, 62, 92. ~ot, of course, that the occurrence ~! few instances of such coupling would destroy our thesiS; but we feel t~a_ the present evidence is significant. 28 Cf. above, p. 12.

88 Numismatic Iconography oj Justinian II

the dispute, for motives which we can only surmise. \Vhat more natural, therefore, than for him to have hesitated to strike coins identi~ed with. the actions of the Council, at mints where the papal authonty was m effect stronger than his own?

Coins of our Type III, on the other hand, seem to have been ac­ceptable in the West; and their reverse, in fact, seems to show a different aspect of the imperial authority. The globus in the emperor's hand proclaims "Peace;" if this was an offer of reconciliation with Ital!" it must have been accepted. Could all this have taken place durm~ the same short period of three years from 692 , the date of the Council, to 695, the date of Justinian II's fall?

The reason that all coins bearing the figure of Justinian II alone have usually b~en as.signed to his first reign is the simple one that we know ~hat. dunng his second reign he had as co-emperor his infant son, Tlbenus. But the fact seems to have escaped the compilers of our catalogues that Justinian II at the outset of his second reign did rule alone for several mo?ths,. perhaps for the better part of a year, before he was able to bnng his wife and son to Constantinople and ha~e them.crom;ed; ~nd during part of that period, he was not even a" ~re of hIS son s eX1s~ence. ~9 In this time, Justinian could scarcely ha\ e presumed to strike coms representing his uncrowned son as already elevated to the rank of Augu"tus· yet l·t . all.

. u, IS equ y mcon-celvable given the importa f th .. . . . ' nce 0 e COm-Image as a representatIOn

of the lm'perial ~uthority, that he would have failed to strike some sort of COIns of hIS own, to replace in circulation those of his hated­and vanquished-rivals .

. Our Type III fits the requirements of such a type to perfection, in VIew of what we know of the circumstances of JUstinian II's return to power. 'Vhereas an attempt to explain l·tS appear t I.

. . . ance a any ear Ier date raised mnumerable complications l·n 70~ all ·t d. . ..

.. ... ':> 1 S Istinctive charactenstIcs comcide With the period '''hen th h .. . . ., e emperor was s ow-mg himself 'i\illing to make concessions to the papal feelings as a price for reconciliation with Rome and the West· amo th h t . . . ng ese c arac er-IStlcs we should single out the retreat from th ". ·al" Ch . t .. e lillpen . ns -Image assocIated, apparently "ith the cont ·al Q .. t

. , roverSI Ullllsex e COl1llcil; the proclamation of "Peace" restored to earth by Justinian,

29 Cf. above, pp. 14ff.

Chronology oj the Coins 89

the rightful emperor;30 and yet at the same time, significantly enough, sufficient attributes are retained, such as the "Rex Regnantium" legend and the emperor's loros-costume, to continue to assert the God-given nature of the emperor's power almost as much as the pre­ceding type had done.

Nor would the Papacy have been so apt to block the minting of such coins. Its point had been made in the suppression of Type II; the political symbolism of Type III, in contradistinction to that of its predecessor, contains nothing which would have made its striking Objectionable at the mints under the jurisdiction of the Exarch of Italy. Coins of this type, 'i\ith Justinian II alone, would have con­tinued to appear, as other periods of multiple-rulers hip demonstrate, even after the coronation of little Tiberius had led to the introduction of Type IV and Type IV-B. .

There are other grounds on which our objection to the datmg of Type III to the first reign have already been sub5tant~ated. Exa:mna­tion of our descriptions of the two issues will show ~erenc~s m the orthography of the legends on the two which are hIg~ly ,~nhkely on coins minted direct sequence: while Type II calls Chnst IH~CRIS­

TOS," Type III terms Him "DNIHSCHS;" Type ~I ~~~s :he emperor's title "DIGSTIN ... ," while Type III begm: ~N~'S­TIN .. ,"31 Further differences in the epigraphy of these Inscnphons, in each case relating Type III closer to Type IV than to its predeces­sor, as well as the evidence of style, led Laffranchi to anticipate our conclusions in his important article:32 He found that whereas Type ~I followed epigraphically and stylistically upon Justinian II's Type I In

30 The use of the legend "PAX" is curiously restricted on Byzantine coins-, ' 't 'd n ,. durin" the Roman Emprre, It curiously so consldenng 1 s ,VI e curre Cy ". . .

appears, other than on these issues, on the earlier bronze ISSU:S of JpUSt1~Ia~ II (n. 6, p. 21, aboye) and on a bronze I,ssue whi~h, to Judge by the Lngt 0,

the imperial beard dates fairly early In the reIgn of Con~tans II \641-668) (Sabatier, op. cit. i, p. 296, X~. ro). The only generalization w~lch 1: seems to us possible to make about the use of the word IS that It seem~ to occu:':i~: the Heraclian Dynasty, more or less at the outset of reIgns "hlen ~egIn '1 d dYnastic troubles (Constans II and his brothers-ConstantIne. I. co-rue with his for a dozen years instead-and possibly Justinian II anG, hIS p.utatn e brother Heraclius not to mention Justinian II's later troubles], ana hence implies a reassur~nce of the "Pax-Romana-Christiana" restored wlth legltl­macy. Cf. below, pp, 91 ff. 31 Cf. above, pp. 22f.

32 Gp. cit" note 9.

90 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

a natural way, Type III showed considerable dissimilarities stylistical­ly and epigraphically (the phrasing of the inscription referrina to Christ differs on the two types, for example, as does the epigra~hy of the letter" G"). In general, on the other hand, the style of Type III is quite similar to that of the coins of Tiberius III (PLATE II, IS; the heads, hair, etc., of the emperor-portraits on the two types are all but identical, and quite dissimilar from the strongly individualized and far more plastic portraits of the coins of Leontius or of Justinian II's first reign). Laffranchi established a stylistic sequence, therefore, in which Justinian II's coins of Type III took a place only following the development carried through by the coins of Leontius and of Tiberius Apsimar, and hence belonging to the second reign.

Final confirmation is available 'with the discovery of two bronzes, bearing the image of the emperor in bust-length and wearing the loros, as on the gold of Type III, and with legible dates in the year XXI, which in Justinian II's reigns must be 70S-6 (PLATE II, I4).33

With such gratifying substantiating evidence, we may now pos­tulat~ a chronology f.or the types of Justinian II's coinage, always allowmg for overlappIng and continuation of issues within the reigns beyond the rough boundary dates we have indicated:

Type I 68S-692 A. D.M Type II 692-69S A. D. Type III 705-706 A. D. Type IV 706-JII A. D.

33 These two folies are now in .Dun:ba.r::on Oaks; the clearest is acc. no. 52 •1

3.386. !hese are.of the type <?f Ricotti Prma, op. cit., Xo. 172 , on which the date IS not legIble. On the mterpretation of the dates on coins of Justinian II, ef. above, n. 9, p. 22.

34 Our sub-group Type I-A would presumablv fall at the b . . cr £ this . d b t 't . I' I d' J egIDnln", a peno , u 1 IS a Itt e Ifficult to state positively when 't d T I

• _ . - • 1 ceases an ype take~ 0'\ er. T~ Iv -B, on the other hand, can be assumed to have been issued concurrently w1th Type IV.

THE MEANING OF JUSTINIAN II'S NEW COIN TYPES

In our study of the coins of Justinian II, which gradually has nar­rowed consideration to Types II and III as representing the signifi­cant innovations of this emperor in numismatic iconography, we have been led step by step to the statement of most of the conclusions which it is possible to draw from them. In the course of this study, we have been able to indicate in detail many of the determinations which may be made with assurance as to the precise meaning of the coins­insofar as, at the time of issue even, one would have been correct in attributing to each a single meaning, whether precise or otherwise. It remains for us, however, to gather this somewhat scattered ev­idence together in view of our larger problems.

In doing so, we should keep in mind the significant point emphasized by Grabar, that on both of these coin issues it is necessary, more than with almost any others in the field of numismatics, to consider both obverse and reverse types together, as complementary images forming one iconographic whole. l

The reverse of Type II (PLATE I, 5), representing the standing emperor holding the stepped cross, takes its point of departure, as we have indicated, from the symbolism of the imperial victory; the con­sular costume serves to carry out this symbolism still more clearly. Yet the legend, as Grabar remarked,2 does not really complement this iconography; instead, it employs an expression of humility to show the emperor as the subject of Christ.3 vVe have before us, then, a subtle transition from the previous iconography, in which Christian symbols were the instruments of the imperial power in achieving an essentially secular triumph, to a new conception, in which the emperor himself is but the instrument of the Divine Will in achieving Its own victories.

1 \Vell stated in L'iconoclasme, p. 37. ~ L'empereztr, pp. 19-20. " . ' ., ' " 3 Emphasized by Grabar, and by P. L. Koch, Chnstusbild-KaISerbild, Benediktinische llJ: anatsschrift XXI, 1939, pp. 91 fl., esp. pp. 92-3. It IS c~nous that Koch mistakenly describes the Christ-image on Justinian n:s corns a:' "enthroned" (p. 91), the type introduced after the RestoratlOn of tne Image::>.

91

92 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

Our research on the background of the "servus Christi" legend has shown that its determining formative element was that of the apos­tolic tradition. That this is the connotation of our type as a whole may be suggested by the chapter of the Book of Ceremonies referred to earlier, which explains why the emperor and the twelve high dignitaries wore the loros on Easter Sunday: The magistrates do so as types of the Apostles, says the text, while the emperor in his golden costume represents, insofar as it is possible for a mere human being to do so, Jesus Christ Himself14

This Christomimesis was thus a conscious element of the mid­Byzantine imperial ceremonial; are we justified in projecting its or­igins back to the seventh century? Quite possibly not, as far as an overt intention is concerned; yet the study of our coin types makes it all but indisputable that these were ideas present at that time: the emperor, standing before his Master, appears to men both as the image of the Divine Pambasileus on earth,5 and as the apostle of the true Faith, of orthodoxy itself, bearing the true word of dogma to all men.

If this coin type represents the emperor, therefore, as a living apostle, how would the function of his apostleship have been con­ceived by these men of the seventh century?

Three hundred years later, when the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III employed t~e same titulature, it was on the occasion of a campaign in Polan?, agc:mst a heathen people.6 Otto found it expedient to prop­agandize hIS war a~ a crusade of evangelism against the pagans, so th~t. he used the tItle "servus Christi" to suggest his campaign's llllsslOn~ry, hence apos~olic, .nature. Justinian II also engaged in a ,var agamst the barbanans, m the Balkans in 688, and it has been

t De Cer. II, 40, ed. de Reiske, p. 638. 6 For the Christia~ use of the Xeo-Pythagorean concept of the emperor as Image of God (dIstmct from the analogy between the use of the imperial port­rar: and_ that of the Images of Christ), which was developed particularly by Eu"eblU~ for applIcabon to Constantme I cf Ladner "The I C t " - _ ' ,. , mage oncep, D. O. Papers \ II~ 19.)3, pp. ~off;: refernng especially to K H. Baynes, "Euse-bms ,and t~e ~h1}st1an, Emprre, l1UZanges Bidez (A nnales de t' I nstitut de Phi­:o!og1e et d Htstotre Orle1~tales II" 1934), pp. 13 fl. A cogent study of the later mterpretation of the re,atlOnshlp between the emperor and Christ' . en ~y Deer, Schweizer Beitrage XIII, 1955, pp. 98-108. IS grv

Cf. above, p. 65.

Meaning of the New Coin Types 93

suggested7 that this "apostolic" coin type might well refer to this campaign. The muted triumphal symbolism of the type might be understood to favor this interpretation; yet it must be considered doubtful either that the campaign of 688 assumed sufficient impor­tance to justify such a radical innovation in numismatic iconography, Dr that the mission of the campaign was conceived, even for purposes of propaganda, as being of an evangelical nature. There are no signs that the Byzantines of this period ever sought to justify their periodic raids against the Slavs and the Bulgars on the grounds that they were bringing light to the heathen; on the contrary, these ,,,ere purely defensive excursions, and until the ninth century little or no effort seems to have been expended in the direction of effecting the con­version of these enemies to Christianity.s

Much more directly connected with the apostolic function in the attitude of the day, on the other hand, was the idea of establishing orthodoxy within the Christian community itself. Constantine, first of the imperial apostles,9 appears to have had this very much in mind when he assembled the first oecumenical council to define the orthodox faith, for in his preamble to the Council of Nicaea, reported in several sources, the emperor addressed the assembled bishops as the servants of God, nominating himself as their fellow-slave, and called upon them all to be apostles of peace 'within the Christian community by their actions at that council.10 Preserved, therefore, in the acts of the prototype of all church councils was this statement, incorporating the integral elements of our coin image. That this attitude toward the councils was not forgotten may be demonstrated by the letter of Eutychius to Pope Vigilius, included in the Acts of the Fifth Council

7 Verbally, by Prof. Grabar; he did not develop the suggestion in L'icrmo­clasme, despite the fact that, since he links Type III with the Quinisexte Council and believes Type II to precede it, a connection between the Latter and the Balkan campaign would be chronologically convenient. 8 Cf. F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXe sihie, Paris, 1926. 9 Cf. in addition to the citations already made, notes II and 12, p. 64 above, H. P. L'Orange, op. cit., pp. 126-7, and p. 150, n. 2-16. , 10 The version in the Vila Constantini II, 12 (ed. Heikel, pp. 82-3) IS generally considered the most accurate. As regards the disputed problem of the reliability of the Vita Constantini as a whole, it must be remembered that, whateyer the reservations of modern scholarship concerning the precise date of its author­ship, the text was in existence 'well before the time with which we are dealing, and was then considered genuine.

94 Numismat~'c Iconography oj Justinian II

of 553, which describes the councils as continuing the work of the propagation of the Faith begun by Christ and His Apostles. l1

It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the church councils were considered in themselves, and in their published acts, as fundamental symbols of the orthodox faith; this is borne out by the history of the diptychs and of the images of these councils, at the very period we are studying. W'hen the ephemeral emperor Philippicus Bardanes came to the throne following Justinian II, he sought to restore the co~demn~d Monothelete heresy;12 one of his most significant acts whIle str~"ing to achieve this aim was the destruction of the images of the SIX Oecumenical Councils, which had hitherto stood in the vestibule of the Great Palace between the Fourth and the Sixth Schola. Philippicus proceeded to erect at the Milion, the civic heart of Constantinople, a new image which included only the first five of the councils, those which had not anathematized his theology. W'hen he sent to Rome to command Pope Constantine (who had barely re­turned from his visit to Justinian II at Constantinople) to perform the same purge on the similar images of the councils which existed ther~, the Pope refused to act, and an enraged populace substituted the. lffiage of the Sixth Council for the customary "sacred" portrait whIch had been set up to represent the heretical emperor.13

W'hat: then, of the Christ before W'hom the apostolic emperor stands l~ re~erence ? We have seen that the history of this Rex RegnantlUm ~age was prolonged into the post-Iconoclastic period, a?d that th:re IS an excellent possibility that its history prior to the tlffie of the Issue of these coins can be determined. This is Christ the K~ng of ThoseWho. Rule, Christ in His aspect of Pambasileus, with HIS power related directly to that of the emperor, ruling through the emperor over the races of men. The Rex Regnantium concept has never been more accurately defined than it was by a Pope, Leo II,

11 Mansi, op. cit. IX, cols. 185-8. 12 Cf. above, p. 17. 13 The best study of these images is H Stem "Les 't t' d il d I'E l' . d ,- .. , . . , represen a IOns es con-

e es ans g lse e la ~,atlvIte a Bethleem " Byzant' XI 6 nd XIII 8 . . .' wn, 193 ,pp. 101-52 ,

a . ,19;>, pp. 415-59, the conflIcting evidence from the sources for this particular epIsode are unravelled "ith !ITeat skill in \T L XI d

G b L " It>o , pp. 144-5, an p. 144, n. 3· ra ar,. zconoc asme, pp. 48-61, reviews the evidence and dem-onstrates that these Images stood conceptually quite specifically for the per­son of Christ as Second Person of the Trinity.

Afeaning oj the New Coin Types 95

writing to Constantine IV in May of 682 to acknowledge receipt of the Acts of the Sixth Council, and to indicate his endorsement of their contents.14 Pope Leo was, of course, reminding the emperor of his responsibilities to his Heavenly superior; but what could be more fitting to our interpretation of the image than the first words of his letter: "Small and great we thank the king of those who rule, in whose power are the kingdoms of this world, and who has thus in­vested you with the earthly empire ... " ?I5 "You rule by virtue of the mandate which has been sent to you by God."16

Herein lies the distinction between the Pantocrator, the Sovereign of all men, and the Rex Regnantium. This is not God the Father, visible through the form of His Son, on these coins, as the Iconophiles described the concept of the Pantocrator when they evolved their aesthetic of representation in the eighth century ;17 this is the Son Jesus Christ Himself, W'hose servant Justinian II proclaims himself to be.

The words of Leo II seem, indeed, to combine in a most happy way the concepts with which "ve have been dealing. Using almost the very words of Justin II,18 on the occasion of the conclusion of an oecumeni­cal council, within the very lifetime of Justinian II the Pope gives expression to the meaning of the Rex Regnantium image in the most cogent way possible. It is not surprising to find that Justinian II adopted this sponsorship of the emperor's Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, 'Vho makes His power felt on earth through the basileus, His representative and regent.19

Justinian II's council concerned itself with defining the nature of the worship to be offered through images to Christ the Son. It is this Son of God Whom Justinian served, therefore, in regulating the faith of the orthodox, and in publishing the Canons of his Church Council;

14 ylansi, op. cit. XI, cols. 725-36. 15 Ibid. XI, col. 725: ,,:i;> f3~cn.Aet -:&v ~cr.0"u..Eu6v-:(U'J O!J7t'J~; e~J 7ft E;~'Ja(~ ,ta'iv cd "':ou xoO'tlou [3'XO'!.AE'i'a~, cxu.o:-~ ~t.'Xpo£ 't"£ :.ca.t !l-ey~o!. EUX::X;F!.cr--;t')GtJZ~J, ~ o;).o:-w:; d.~ u{.Li.; f,LE't'ct'YCly6v,,:!. ~v £itLyzt.ov ~tXO't.AdCIV •••

16 Loc. cit.: o'"':t. EX "t"Y,'; 6c::66ev utL!y 7:P0O'7":0PLa6e:tai;:; ":'!.tL-t;:; ~:l!:n).~·je:7e. .

17 Cf. inter alia John of Damascus, De Imaginilms Oratia III, IS, )'bgne, P. G. 94, eols. 1337-40. For discussion on the identification of the Pantocrator, d. Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. 4<'rL

18 Cf. above, p. 55. 19 Grabar, L'iconaclasme, pp. 21 fl., discusses previous e ... idenee of the purposeful association of imperial ~ith religious images.

96 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

and this act of service, or apostleship, is the one commemorated on Justinian II's coins of Type II.

Type III, (PLATE I, 7) on the other hand, seems not so clearly defined, and in a certain sense may always defy any absolutely precise interpretation. The emperor no longer addresses Christ, but speaks to men,20 and all aspects of the reverse type serve to confirm our sugges­tion that these coins were issued after Justinian II's recapture of the throne in 705 A. D. He appears to his subjects, clad as before, but holding, in place of the mappa-anexikakia, a globus cruciger which proclaims that Peace has been restored to the world by the vindication of the legitimate dynasty. So his subjects receive him with the fitting salutation, "Lord for many Years," an invocation of a long and fortunate reign for the restored basileus. The sense of dynastic con­tinuity is stressed, shortly, by the inclusion of Justinian II's infant son Tiberius, who was raised to the rank of Augustus at an uncom­monly early age. In the idea of legitimacy, the reestablishment of the rightful dynastic succession, if we are correct in our dating and in our interpretation of this type, lies the key to an understanding of these corns.

The changed Christ indicates the passage of time since the minting of Type II. The information which we possess on this portrait-type, complete though it may be in one sense, does not tell us why it should have been used on this coin; it certainly does not represent any stricter adherence to the Eighty-Second Canon of the Quinisexte Council than the previous Rex Regnantium portrait, since the Canon simply calls for the representation of Christ "in human form,"21 and not according to any given portrait-tradition.

This is a different Christ, however, from our Pambasileus, the Christ of the emperors, for despite the persistence of the legend Rex Regnantium, He does not stand for the divinely-sanctioned aspect of the Byzantine imperium in the same sense as does the Christ of our Type II. Justinian II here rules in his own right, directly over his people; the obverse legend recalls the principle of the super-magistracy

20 As remarked by Grabar, L'empereur, p. 19, n. 4. Of course Grabar has since changed his mind to some extent on this, and, having linked our Type III coin v.ith the Quinisexte Council, has a less :firm position for our coins of Type II. 21 Cf. above, p. 83.

lVIeaning of the New Coin Types 97

of Christ, but the coin as a whole does not assert this so much as the power of the emperor himself; in a sense, therefore, it may be still more imperialistic a conception, in the strictest sense of the word, than was Type II.

No more than it prescribes a single specific portrait-type of Christ, does Canon 82 limit to a single fashion the manner in which Christ may be depicted. We are already familiar with occasional instances of the appearance of more than one portrait-type of Christ within the same iconographic formula, as if in order to illustrate the multiple theological concepts involved in the personality of the Son of Man. 22

We have no evidence, however, that such an idea was operative in the creation of these new coin-types; still it is not beyond the realm of possibility that some such conception was present within their creators' minds.

While this concept may only be suggested, we have already indicated that the Syrian parentage of the Christ-portrait of Type III may have played a part in its selection for this issue, at a time when Justinian II had in mind a reconciliation with the papacy (even though it must be remembered that his method was not one of mere appeasement-vide his sending the blinded ex-Patriarch Callinicus as one of his ambassadors to Rome). Beyond this we know too little of the history and associations of this portrait-type to arrive at a positive conclusion about its significance on this coin.

One possibility suggests itself, however, in view of the nature of the reverse type, and the general content of the coin as a whole: The idea of the image "from the life" is closely linked with a series of other portraits or images of Christ, such as the Sacred Image of Edessa and that of Camuliana, which had become famous in the preceding century,23 and which were part of a whole family of portraits which either were supposed to be physical imprints of

22 An outstanding instance is the appearance of two contrasting figure-types of Christ in the narrative mosaics of S. Apollinare ~uovo at Rayenna, dis­cussed by O. von Simson, in Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft m Ravenna, Chicago, 1948, pp. 73-4 & passim. Grabar, pp. 18f. and 42 fl., adduces several examples of this doubling of Christ-images, some of which, however, are rather more inferential than otherwise. 23 Cf. Dobschiitz, op. cit., the best and most thorough study of the evidence on this subject; but Kitzinger, in D. O. Papers VIII, 1954, pp. 100-I5, uses it in a way much more directly germane to our problem.

7

98 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

Christ's living body made during His lifetime, or miraculously brought into existence at a later date. It has already been suggested that these images, which came from the general region of Syria and Palestine, were related to the numerous descriptions of the appear­ance of Christ "more familiar in the time of the Saviour, "24 and which seem to originate in about the same period as that of the rise of the "acheiropoietai," as the miraculous images themselves were called. 25

These images were regarded in the seventh century, furthermore, as having palladian or apotropaeic powers. The Image of Edessa was credited with saving that city in the great Persian siege of 544 ;26

while the Camuliana portrait was used in 586 to instil courage in the imperial troops before battle.27 But most significant of all, Heraclius, founder of the dynasty to which Justinian II belonged, seems t? have been a particularly fervent believer in the efficacy of suc~ Illl~aculous aUxili~~es:28 He displayed the icon of the Virgin dunng hIS naval expeditIOn to overthrow Phocas; he used the mira­culous image of. Christ-it has been suggested29 that this may have bee~ the very Im~ge of .Camuliana which had been brought from Syna to Constantmople m 574, during the reign of Justin Ipo-as a p~lladium in his Persian campaign; and he had the same image carned around the walls of Constantinople during the A var siege of 626. As late as the Moslem siege of 7I7, in the reign of the future Iconoclast Leo III, the image of the Virgin, as well as the relics of the True Cross, :vere .c~rried .around the walls of Constantinople in an effort to obtam spmtual aid against the enemy.3!

.We have already suggested that Justinian II's Christ-type B Illlght represent one of these miraculous images; yet we face the

2t Cf. our discussion above, pp. 59££. ia Cf. Koch, Ben. Afon. XX, 1938, pp. 34-6, and Grabar L'iconoclasme pp. 1~I=d~a " 26 Cf. Dobschiitz, op. cit., pp. 68**-85**. 27 T~eophylactus ~in:ocatta, Historiae II, 3, 4££., ed. de Boor, Leipzig, 1887, ~p. 13-4· Cf. Dob"c~utz, op. Cl.t., pp. 51-2 =d 127*-128*.

Cf. the eVIdence CIted by KItzinger in D. O. Papers VIII 19- II f 1

. D b h'" , .:>4, pp. I., ;,.up~ ementmg O}C utz, op. Clt., pp. 52-4 and 128*-134*.

Kltzmger, loc. Cl •• , followmg the presumption made by Dobschiitz, op. cit., P·54· 30 Dobschiitz, op. cit., p. 47; Cedrenus, Historiarum compendium ed. Bekker I p. 685· ' , 31 :3c!igne, P. G. 92, col. 1365.

1\,;1 eaning of the New Coin Types 99

fact that none of the surviving copies of these images show the curly­haired "Syrian" Christ portrait; on the contrary, they are of a long­bearded wavy-haired type derived, like the normal mid-Byzantine type which they closely resemble, ultimately from our Christ-type A and its Greco-Roman antecedents.32 Our coin-type does correspond, however, with the written description of one of these pre-Iconoclastic acheiropoietai, the one in S. Sophia in Jerusalem which was described by Anthony of Placentia in the sixth century.33 We should like to offer the hypothesis that this coin image does, in fact, copy one of the pre-Iconoclast miraculous images which played so large a part in the early development of the cult of the icons.

The most famous of these pre-Iconoclastic acheiropoietai was the Image of Camuliana, of which no replica has been preserved. It would appear to have been lost or destroyed during the iconoclastic period; its place in the popular imagination as a "living" facsimile of Christ's appearance was taken by the Edessan image, which was brought to Constantinople in its turn in 944.34 This image, insofar as we are able to infer its probable appearance,35 seems to have con­formed to the normal mid-Byzantine Christ-portrait, as exemplified by the enthroned Christ of Hagia Sophia, the coin-types of the tenth century, and the many familiar icons of this and later times. All this is in contrast with the pre-Iconoclastic era, when there

32 Cf. Dobschiitz, op. cit., pp. 166-7 and p. 166, n. I; d. also the earliest certain example, ill. by Grabar, Martyrium, PI. LX, 2, a fresco at Spas Xereditsy near Novgorod, dating from II98-99 A. D. Possiblv earlier mav be the :'.15S. illus. by Grabar, L'[conoclasme, fig. 67-3, and dis~ussed on pp. 19-21, both of the 1Iandylion type. 33 Cf. above, pp. 60 f. 34 Dobschiitz, op. cit., pp. 58-9. 35 Cf. above, note 32. Xow A. Blanchet, "L'infiuence artistique de Constantin PorphyrogenHe," IIxyx:i?r;<:~x (.'t,filanges Gregoire: Annales de ['Institut de Phiiologie et d'Histoire Orientales e/ Slaves IX, 1949), pp. 97-104, advances the theory that the impressive Christ image on the gold coins issued by Con­stantine YII alone in 945 (BJIC II, Pl. LIII, 7; subsequently on coins of Const=tine VII and Rom=us II, PI. LIII, 12-4, & by other emperors) represents the Edessan Christ-image, brought to Constantinople a year before and placed in the Blachernae church. He sees the anomalous issue of Leo VI with the Virgin (ibid. II, PI. LI, 8) as a posthumous one struck at the same time-with the Blacherniotissa image as its source for the Virgin type. The theory is a striking one, which merits consideration, especially since it offers the first reasonable explanation of the issue of Leo the \Vise, so out of character \\<ith his other coins.

100 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

apparently was no feeling of difficulty in reconciling multiple types of Christ -image, youthful and mature, beardless and bearded, and so forth.

Despite the apparent standardization which took place in visual imagery after Iconoclasm, we have seen that at least a literary tradition persisted concerning the "familiar" appearance of Christ, corresponding in no way with the customary pictorial image, and apparently connected with the region where the miraculous images themselves originated. It is our hypothesis, then, that Justinian II's Christ-type B, which corresponds to this description, is linked to these miraculous images-most probably to the Camuliana portrait, since that was present in the capital at this time-and was used, as much as anything else, because of its strongly palladian connotations, as a "figure" of Christ invoked in aid of the rightful dynasty.

The association of such miraculous images with the name of Heraclius, as we have seen, also suggests that this may be another aspect of the strongly "dynastic" feeling of Justinian II's coins of Types III and IV; and there is one other detail of these coins which might also indicate this. We refer to the "patriarchal" cross with doubl~ crossbar, the history of which, together with its original meanmg, seems never to have been thoroughly studied.36 "Vhat we 36.Mr. P. Verdier has brought to my attention a group of studies of the "Cross of Lor:aine" or Anjou, stimulated in France by the events of "\Torld War II. These,I~clu~e: L. Cou7ant, La vraie Croix de Bauge ... , Bauge, 1945; A. Cou­~on, l: hzstowe de.la crou de l:orraine, Lille, 1945; F. de Grandmaison, L'heroique ep~pee de la crotx de Lorrame et d'Anjou, Saumur, 1945; C. du Mesnil, "Em­blemes et drape,:ux. La croix de Lorraine," Revue de l'histoire de l'Annie I 1945, p~. 9-22; zdem., "La croix Lorraine," Bulletin de la Societe nationale de; Antlqumres de France, 1945-47, pp. 42f. Of these, only Couson has been avall~ble to me ill other than summary form; but the tenor seems to follow one l~e: The ~ross of Lorraine, originally the double-barred cross on the arms of AnJou, denves from a cross reliquary made for the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus (II43-II80), whlCh was brought back from the Crusades by Jean d'Alluye, and is now in the chapel of the Hospice at Bauge. Thus we woul:t appear to have another example to add to those cited below, of cross-relIquanes of the double-barred form, linked directly with Constantinople. A. ~rolO'.v has now undertaken a general study of the earlv cross-reliquaries which, when completed, should clarify many of the probleill:s in this area.

It may be noted th,:t Grabar, .Diconoclasme, p. 40, connects the double­barred cross on the corns of J ustllllan II with the one customarily held bv Christ in .mid-Byz~tine and later scenes of the Anastasis, the Harrowing ~f I;Iell. Wbile there IS undoubtedly a. connection, we should prefer to think of a link thr~)Ugh the common source,!. e., that in both instances it is meant to emp~as~ze the .fac~ that it is the True Cross, the actual instrument of the Crucifixion, WhICh IS bemg used.

Meaning of the New Coin Types 101

do know about it is that all the earliest surviving reliquaries for fragments of the True Cross take this shape: The Poitiers Reliquary, which legend says was sent to St. Radegund by Justin II about 569;37 the Fieschi-Morgan Reliquary, which Rosenberg dated in the pre-Iconoclastic period;38 and the Staurothek of Limburg, which surely dates from the tenth century.39 (Although there remain un­resolved disagreements among students of the problem as to the pre-Iconoclastic dating of the first two reliquaries, no one has question­€d the fact that these three are all Eastern cross-reliquaries preserved from before the year 1000 A. D., and that the two-barred form seems to be the one normally taken by such early Eastern reliquaries,)

It is significant, in this connection, that this form may be the one described by the pilgrim Arculf when speaking of the reliquary of the True Cross which he saw during his visit to Constantinople about the year 670.40 Arculf writes of the extreme veneration shown by all, and particularly by the imperial family, for the relics which were preserved in an unnamed round church, and then gives an involved description of the way in which these relics were enshrined. Cn­fortunately, the details of his description are too confused for the modern mind to be able to reconstruct the precise shape of the reliquary; but what Arculf makes clear is that the relics of the Cross were in three pieces, which were somehow shown i~ combin~tion: A -cross with double bars would seem one of the few pOSSIble ways ill whIch such a combination of three pieces of a cross could be mounted together.

Once more we are reminded of the actions of Heraclius, for it was that emperor who brought back these very relics of the True Cross

37 Published by Martin Conway, "St. Radegund's Reliquary at Poitiers," Antiquaries Journal III, 1923, pp. 1-13, & PI. I, accepting fully the traditIOnal history. This reliquary is currently being studied by:3Ir. M. C. Ross, who may be able to shed further light upon the question of its date. 38 Marc Rosenberg, NieUo bis zum Jahre IOOO nach Christus, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1924, pp. 61-7; d. esp. fig. 52, p. 62. . 39 Marc Rosenberg, Geschichte der Goldschmiedekunst auf techmscher Grundlage lIP, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1921, pp. 67 & 72; PI. I (4) & III (r). Interestillg also in this connection is the cross within a halo in the ~IS. of the Sacra Parallela of John of Damascus, Paris gr. 923, illus. by Grabar, L'iconoclasme, fig: r63: and discussed by Schapiro, loco cit., whi~h may be double-barred or slIDpl} endowed ... "ith an unusually pronounced tzttltus. . . 40 Arculfus De Locis Sanctis III, 3, in T. Tobler, Itinera et Descrzptwnes Terrae Sanctae I, 'Geneva, 1877, pp. 193-5. I am indebted to Prof. Kitzinger for this and other important references bearing upon this problem.

102 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

to Constantinople after his first Persian campaign.41 If we are justi­fied in thinking that there is some connection between Heraclius' transfer of the cross relics to his capital, and Justinian II's use of a type of cross which seems to have been particularly associated with the True Cross to surmount the globus of world dominion on his coins, this would relate to two interconnected ideas: that this emblem of the True Cross was another symbol evoking dynastic associations with the glories of the founder, Heraclius, upon which Justinian II wished to fall back with his own return to power; and that the Holy ~ross, too, had strong palladian powers to protect the Empire and Its ruler-this latter fact being confirmed by the use of the relics a few years later, during the siege of 717.

The "life" image of Christ, then, would appear as a suitable com­plement to that of the emperor on the thiid issue of coins by Justinian II, at the outset of his second reign. While the emperor is acclaimed by his subjects, and presents himself to them as the legitimate heir of the Heraclian dynasty, the best ower of peace upon a world troubled b~ rebellion, usurpation and heresy within, paganism and barbarity ~thout the Empire, the image of the miracle-working Christ is mvoked to protect Justinian, his family and his realm from these threats, and to assure the Peace which is as much requested as proclaimed by the legend. . Thi:, interpretation makes comprehensible the acceptance of this I:sue m papal territories, despite its potent assertion of the imperial nght to world dominion. Type II represents the emperor's sacerdotal office together ,,,ith his secular one, and hence seemed to the Italians to cha~enge :he freedom of the Holy See to interpret orthodoxy according to Its own lights. On Type III, on the other hand, the emperor, however divinely endowed vlith power, is shown as purely ~ lay .sovereign, who appeals to Christ rather than represents Him. mvokmg the aid of the Son of God to protect his Empire from danger. and to continue his imperial house in power.42

.. Nicephorus, ed. de Boor, p. 22. U Although Grabar, L'iconoclasme, pp. 41 ff., is led to different conclusions about the meaning and purpose of our two types of coins, his analysis of the Christ-types IS not far from the one arrived at here. He sees our Christ­type B, wlth curly beard, as the "historical" Christ the Prince of Peace the Inca.mate Son,. Christ 5:f the Redemption; while au; Christ-type A, with 'long flowmg beard, IS the Kmg of Glory, Christ of the Second Coming. Thus there

Meaning of the New Coin Types 103

A review of the "after-life" of these types, in the light of Grabar's recent discussion,43 serves to emphasize the importance they had for later periods of Byzantine art and munismatics. The immediate successors of Justinian II, of course, rejected these types with their strong dynastic associations; shortly afterward, Iconoclasm removed the possibility of such iconic representations on official issues. Nor is it perhaps as strange as Grabar seems to feel44 that, during the brief periods under Artavasdus and Irene when iconophile sentiments once more were resurgent,45 the major step of replacing Christ on the official coinage did not take place. Only some time after Michael III and Theodora had finally overthrown the Iconoclastic policies was this done.

In the meantime, however, the formulation of iconophile doctrine, in the face of Iconoclast attacks, had brought to the fore the whole problem of the sovereignty of Christ; one of the major points in­veighed against the Iconoclast emperors by their opponents was their denial of Christ's overlordship,46 and the most concrete evidence brought to bear in support of this was the fact that these emperors, on their coins, had "replaced" the image of Christ with their own!47 And in the famous letter of the Three Eastern Patriarchs to The­ophilus, last of the Iconoclast emperors, there was described a coin of Constantine the Great on which the first Christian emperor de­is a sort of dichotomy present between the human and the divine aspects of the personality of Christ as between one and the other portrait. \Vbile we doubt that contemporary a'rthodox theology would have permitted an intention to represent one aspect of Christ's Person exclusively without the other, we can agree upon the nature of the emphasis in each case . • 3 L'iconoclasme, pp. I2off., Chapter VI, passim, and pp. 209 ff. .. Ibid., p. I20. 4li Grabar illustrates, ibid., fig. 51, a seal published by Ebersolt, Revue l\~umis­matique, 1914, pp. 207ff. & PI. VII, 3, which bears on one stde the tmage of Christ in the version of our Type A (cross behind head but no apparent nimbus), and on the other a y;uthful emperor of the name Constantine, portrayed in the style of Iconoclast coins of the eighth century. Grab~r argues, p. 129, that this is most probably an issue of Constantine VI, under hIS mother, Irene, and this would seem most probable; on the other hand, we know that Artavasdus struck coins on which he shared place ,,~ith his rival Constantine V (d. Boyce, op. cit.), and it is not impossible that this sort of anti-Iconoclast emblem might have been issued by him also, in the name of th: Copro~y'1llus. In either case this is an official use of the image of ChrISt dunng the mtenm between Justiman II and Michael III. •• Cf. Grabar, op. cit., Chapter VI, esp. p. 152, and pp. 161 ff. 41 Ibid., p. 124

I04 Numismatic Iconography of Justinian II

picted not only himself, but Christ and the Cross as well.48 While this coin (or seal), if it really existed at the time, must have been a fabrication,49 it surely was evoked, and its description inspired, by surviving coins of Justinian II.

"''hen the time came that the Byzantines could once more venerate religious images, it was in imperial circles that the most prompt action would seem to have been taken,50 and on the coins that one of the earliest reappearances of the image of Christ took place. 51

To account for the fact that one of Justinian's Christ-types, and not the other, or both of them, was used, we may suggest several complementary reasons: the disappearance of the Camuliana icon, and the general suppression of religious images over more than a century, which led to a lack of familiarity with the wealth of pre­Iconoclastic imagery; at the same time, the permanent separation from Syria and Palestine, now of long standing; and the fact that iconophile theory, as worked out by John of Damascus and his followers, tended to favor the establishment of one standard portrait­type as the "true" one. In the outcome, the more familiar "pam­basileus" image -closer in physical type to the bulk of the population and evoking the sovereignty of Christ which had become so important -won the favor of the first artists, and became the norm. 52

Thus, while it is incontrovertible that the new types of Justinian II were not conceived originally with any relationship to the problems of the Iconoclastic Controversy-were not, essentially, vehicles of theological ideas at all, but purely of political doctrineSS-they nevertheless played a key part in the resolution of that Controversy, and thus in the working out of the orthodox program of the place of religious art in the practice of the Christian Faith. Few, if any, numismatic issues can have had at any time so important a part to play in the history of human thought.

48 )'Iigne, P. G. 95, col. 348. 49 Cf. Grabar, op. cit., pp. 37-8 & I24. 5U Emphasized by Grabar, ibid., p. 127. 51 Ibid., pp. 209ft. 52 Grabar, ibid., p. 45, having linked our Christ-type B with the Quinise:l>."i:e Council, suggests that it was dropped after 843 because the problems of the Quinisexte were no longer pertinent to the post-Iconoclastic period. This view seems to us questionable at best, regardless of our interpretation of the coin type; church canons do not go out of fashion or become obsolete in any case, and the pronouncements of the Quinisexte would seem to have been very much alive only a very short time earlier. S3 Here we may agree whole-heartedly with Grabar, ibid., pp. 126-7.

PLATES

2 3 4

• ~ .. -: - - ~~ ii1!l "hi '!!!I.

t ~ ,

5 6 7 8

e-.' . . ~

9 10 11 12

I. Justinian II. ~lidus, Ty;pe I-A. Constantinople ~t. A.N.S. 2. Justinian II. S~lidU:, Type I. Constantinople Mmt. A.N.S. 3. Justinian II. Semis, Type I. Constantinop e Mint. Tolstoi J. MonnaiesByzantines. PI. 61, No. 42. 4. Justinian II. Triens, T~ I. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks, Whittemore Collection.. 5. Justinian II. Solidus, Type II. Constantinople Mint. Dumba.rlon Oaks. 6. Justinian II. Triens, Type II: Co~­stantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 7. Justinian II. Solidus, Type III. Constantinop e Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 8. Justinian II. Semis, Type III. Constantinople Mint. ?~­barton Oaks, Whittemore Collection.· 9. Justinian II. Solidus, Type IV. Const;antinop e Mint. Dumbarton Oaks ... 10. Justin.ian II. Semis, Type IV. Constantinople Mint. ~­barton Oaks. II. Justinian II. Solidus, Type IV-B. Sardinian l\fint. Dumbarton 0 . 12. Justinian II. Follis, Type IV-B. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. . • Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Universit}, Thomas Whittemore Collection.

II

13 15

16 17

18 19 20

13 Leontius Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks, Whittemore Collection.· I : Justini~ II. Follis, Type III. Constantinople Mint, Year 21. Du~barlon Oaks. . • It. Tiberius III. Solidus. Constantin~ple Mini:: Dumbarton Oaks, Whittemore Collection. 16 Constantius II. Solidus. Consta.ntinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 17: Justinian I. Solidus. Cons~tinople ~t. Dumbarlon Oaks. 18. Hernclius. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks.. . • 19. Hernclius. Solidus. Constantinople. Mint. ~mbarton Oaks, Whittemore Collection. 20 Constantine IV. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. . . • Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Thomas Whittemore Collection.

III

21 22 23

24

25 26 27

21. Constans II. Solidus. Constantinople ?,IIint. Dumbarton Oaks. 22. Leo IV. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. . • 23· Theodosins II. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks, Whittemore Collection. 24· Con5tantius II. Gold Medallion. Antioch Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 25· Theodosius II. Solidns. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 26. Justin I. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 27· Tiberius II. Solidus. Constantinople Mint Dumbarton Oaks. 28. Phocas. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. . • Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Thomas Whittemore Collection.

IV

29

Consular Diptych of Anastasius, 517 A.D. Ivory. Paris, Bibliotneque Nationale, Cabinet des Medailles.

v

30

31 32

30 • Justinian II. Solidus, Type II: Obverse. Enlarged from Fig. 5. 31 • Michael III. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. A.N.S. 32 • Michael III. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks. 33· Basil 1. Solidus. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks, Whittemore Col­

lection. (Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Thomas Whittemore Collection.)

34· Justin I and Justinian 1. Solidns. Constantinople Mint. Dumbarton Oaks.

VI

'" '"

><~ CI)

.a .... 1d z CI)

~ s 0

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;21 .... ~.E &$ S~ iil ~ I'l '~ ed .a >,0.. ,Q~ 'd m CI) .~

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~ ~ 0 ~ en cd .... rn

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VII VlII

37

Head of Zeus. Marble, found at Mylasa, Carla. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

IX

38. Ju~ II. Solidus, Type III' 0 39. Christ. Fresco found at Abu G' . bverse. Enlarged from Fig. 7·

rrgeh, Egypt.

x

40

Christ Enthroned with Saints. Dedication :\1iniature of Rabula GoSpelS Florence, Laurentian Library.