Alexander

Intro ...

(912-913)

CONSTANTINOPLE

Alexander (912-913). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1737.

Obv: + ıҺs xʀs ʀєx ʀєςnᴀnτıчm. Christ enthroned facing, wearing nimbus cruciger, pallium and colobium, and raising right hand in benediction; in left hand, book of Gospels.

Rev: + ᴀⳑєxᴀnꓒʀᴏs ᴀчςчsτᴏs ʀᴏm’. Alexander standing facing, wearing crown, divitision and loros, and holding globus cruciger; left hand is extended towards Saint Alexander who stands three-quarter face to left, wearing pallium and colobium, and crowing the emperor with his right hand; in his left, cross.

…

Alexander (912-913). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1737ᴀ.

Obv: ıҺsчs xʀısτᴏs. Bust of Christ facing, with cross behind head, wearing pallium and colobium, and raising right hand in benediction; in left hand, book of Gospels.

Rev: ᴀⳑєxᴀnꓒʀᴏs ᴀᴠςчsτᴏs ʀᴏm’. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and jewelled chlamys and holding globus cruciger; in field, ь—ꓒ.

…

Alexander (912-913). AR Miliaresion. Constantinople mint. Sear 1738.

Obv: ıҺsчs xʀısτчs nıcᴀ. Cross potent on three steps, globus beneath; at center of cross, oval medallion with facing bust of Christ; triple border.

Rev: + ᴀⳑєx / ᴀnꓒʀᴏs єn / xω ᴀчτᴏcʀ’ / ᴘısτᴏs єч / sєь’ ьᴀꜱı / ⳑ’ ʀᴏm’ in six lines; triple border ornamented with 8 equally spaced globules.

…

CHERSON

Alexander (912-913). Æ Flat. Cherson mint. Sear 1739.

Obv: Large ᴀ.

Rev: Large ⲡ̊x.

…

On Leo VI's death Alexander was left as senior Augustus, his nephew Constantine being a boy of seven. The reign, happily for the Empire, was to be a short one. For nearly forty years Alexander had been kept in the background, devoting his time to hunting, debauchery, and detesting his brother. Now that he was in a position to have his revenge he seized the opportunity with both hands. Leo VI’s advisers and officials, from the patriarch downward, lost their positions. The Empress Zoe was expelled from the palace and forced to become a nun. Alexander is reputed to have seriously considered deposing and mutilating his nephew, replacing him as co-emperor by one of his favorites. But before anything came of this scheme he broke a blood vessel, as a result of playing a ball game too violently on top of a heavy meal, and died two days afterward, on Sunday, 6 July 913. His final act of spite, on his deathbed, was to set up a Council of Regency for Constantine from which the boy's mother was pointedly excluded.

Alexander’s coins are extremely rare. No copper of Constantinople is known at all, though it is difficult to believe that no coins were struck, and only two specimens of his miliaresion and about a dozen solidi have been recorded. They are nonetheless of considerable importance. Alexander was the first emperor to use a full-length representation of an imperial coronation as a coin type, and the first to have an effigy of a saint (St. Alexander), other than the Virgin, on his coins. He was the first to modify the traditional pattern of the miliaresion; the medallion with the bust of Christ which he placed at the intersection of the arms of the cross was the forerunner of those in which later emperors inserted their own effigies. Finally, Alexander was the first to use on the coins the title of autocrator reserved for the senior emperor, a position for which he had had to wait for so long. None of his coins makes any allusion to the existence of Constantine VII.

(from DOC vol. lll)

Coinage