Heraclonas

Intro ...

(641)

No coins ... according to Sear anyway.

BACKGROUND AND CHRONOLOGY

The emperor who is traditionally known under the diminutive form of Heraclonas — some scholars term him Heraclius II—was born in Lazica in the winter of 625/6. The great Heraclius had been determined that the name of Constantine united with his own should become characteristic of the dynasty, and since the poor health of 'Hρακλειος ο νεος Κωνσταντῖνος and of succeeding children boded ill for the future, he had taken the precaution of giving the names of Heraclius or Constantine to two more sons. The first of these, “the other Constantine” (Κωνσταντινος ο ετερος), was born in 615 or 616, but died as a child in the 620's, during the Persian War. The second, the one born in 625/6, was apparently baptized under the name of Constantine, for Theophanes, in recording his elevation to the rank of Caesar in 632, describes him as Κωνσταντινος ο μικρος. By that time, however, Heraclius Constantine had pre-empted the name of “Constantine,” so the new Caesar received the name of Heraclius in order to avoid confusion. He is always entitled Heraclius in dating formulae of the mid 630’s, he was acclaimed as Heraclius when he became Augustus in 639, and he is always referred to as Heraclius (or Heraclonas) by Byzantine historians in describing his reign. On the coins that are best attributed to him, however, he is called Constantine, so presumably he reverted to his baptismal name after his uncle’s death. He is not the only ruler of the sixth and seventh centuries to be given one name in the texts, another on the coins, though the sons and grandsons of Heraclius are unique in the state of confusion they managed to create for posterity in this respect.
When Heraclius Constantine died early in 641 Heraclonas was fifteen, and completely under the domination of his mother. Heraclius Constantine’s own son Heraclius was ten, and though his father had not given him the title of Augustus he had taken steps to build up a party of supporters who would work for the boy's eventual succession. Martina managed to exile or otherwise dispose of a number of its members, but during the summer of641 opinion swung more and more strongly in his favor, til eventually Heraclonas was compelled to crown him as his nominal colleague under the name of Constantine, abbreviated by the general public to Constans (II).The empress countered this move by causing Heraclonas to crown her next surviving son David, who had received the title of Caesar in 638, as third co-emperor under the name of Tiberius. This further attempt to assure the future for her own children was the last straw, and provoked the Senate into violent and cruel action against Martina and her family. Heraclonas was arrested, deposed, and banished to Rhodes in company with his mother, Heraclonas having his nose slit and Martina her tongue cut out in order to prevent their return to power. Tiberius and an-other brother named Marinus, who had been created Caesar, suffered the same fate as Heraclonas, and another son, whose name we do not know, was so cruelly mutilated that he died of shock. By the end of 641, Constans II was left as sole emperor.
The general circumstances and the order of events are clearer than the chronology, which is given differently by every modern author. Our uncertainty over the date of Heraclius’ death, and consequently over that of Heraclius Constantine, has already been explained. The coronation of Constans II must have occurred in September or in the first days of October. Nicephorus places it at the time of the vintage — the popular discontent was fanned by difficulties over the gathering of the grapes—and since a Lateran synod which opened on 5 October 649 is dated the ninth year of Constans it must at any rate have been before 6 October 64r. Heraclonas was deposed in late October or during November. We can date it roughly from the fact that Paul, formerly oeconomus of St. Sophia, was in October elected Patriarch ofConstantinople in place of Pyrthus, Martina’s staunchest supporter, who had fled from the city. Nicephorus implies that this took place before the downfall of Martina, John of Nikiu that it followed immediately upon it: certainly the two events were closely connected. A date in October or November would agree with the duration of six months for Heraclonas’ reign which is given by Theophanes.

COINAGE

The coins which can best be attributed to Heraclonas are ones which are normally given to the early years of Constans II’s reign, but which in the case of the gold and silver have a different portrait, with a much smaller head, and in that of the copper are of a different type, with bust instead of standing figure. They may be listed as follows:

(a) Constantinopolitan solidi on which the emperor is styled Constantinus and which are characterized by the emperor being shown with a very small head and wearing a crown. The small head separates them from the early portraits of Constans II, where the head is large; the crown distinguishes them from the helmeted bust of Heraclius Constantine, which they otherwise closely resemble. Although one cannot attach much weight to indications of age, the bust with small head seems to represent a rather older person than does the large head on the coins of Constans II.The emperor's hair is sometimes shown as symmetrical, as was that of Heraclius Constantine, sometimes asymmetrical, as that of Constans II was always to be, so that in this respect the coins mark a transition between the two reigns. Some of the coins have CONOBK instead of CONOB, a feature which they share with the solidi of Heraclius Constantine but which was not carried on under Constans II.

(b) Silver coins, both ceremonial coins and hexagrams, with the same portrait as the solidi.

(c) Folles of Constantinople having on the obverse a facing bust, beardless, with the inscription INPЄR CONST and on the reverse M with the inscription ANANЄOS and the date II I. These coins are customarily attributed to Constans II, but one has only to arrange the sequence of early folles of Constans II to see the unlikelihood of this attribution. From Year 1 to Year 7 his folles have on the obverse a standing figure with the inscription En touto nika, and on the reverse a mark of value with the form M. One cannot reasonably interpolate into this series an issue of Year 3 quite different in appearance, with a facing bust, another inscription, and a mark of value in the form M, more especially since coins of Year 3 also exist of the En touto nika type. 641 would correspond, at least in part, to Heraclonas’ Year 3, since he was crowned Augustus in July 638 and publicly acclaimed in January 639.

An obvious difficulty over such an attribution is the belief that some specimens of this type are overstruck on folles of Constans II with a standing figure and En touto nika, and therefore must be later than these in date. This is asserted by Wroth of one in the British Museum (W. 94) and by Dikigoropoulos of two in the Kharcha hoard (Nos. 97, 137). If this were correct, and no En touto nika coins can be attributed to Heraclius Constantine— this is probable, but not certain— the Inper. Const. coins could not belong to Heraclonas. I doubt, however, if it is really the case. There is at Dumbarton Oaks a coin (p. 397, No. 5b) on which the main type is that with Inper. Const. but which shows to one side, on both faces of the coin, part of the inscription and types of an En touto nika coin. It was first catalogued as an Inper. Const. coin overstruck on an En touto nika one. A careful re-examination by Mr. Hendy and myself showed that it is the other way round. The En touto nika part of the coin is much thinner than the Inper. Const. one, showing that the second pair of dies hit the previous coin a glancing blow, deeply marking it only over a restricted part of the surface but leaving the earlier type intact over the rest. I believe the same to be true of the other alleged cases of overstriking involving both Inper. Const. and En touto nika types.

(d) Foles with the same obverse inscription and type save that the bust is bearded instead of beardless. The reverse type is differently arranged, the date, obliterated by later countermarks on the two recorded specimens of the coin, being placed beneath the mark of value. This coin was attributed by Wroth to some uncertain period of Constans II's reign, the difficulty being once again that it did not fit easily into the natural sequence of that emperor's coinage. Despite the unexpectedly low weights of the two recorded specimens (2.15g, 3.4g) it seems natural to place the class immediately after the coins dated Year 3 with beardless bust and to assume that it was struck after Heraclonas had been compelled to accept Constans II as his colleague. A bearded bust may seem inappropriate for a boy of fifteen, but the Heraclian dynasty was nothing if not hirsute. Constans II’s coins show him with a short beard at the age of sixteen and an immense one at that of twenty.

(e)Foles with an obverse similar to (c),with beardless bust, but having on the reverse a mark of value in the form M, the inscription differently arranged, and a prominent SCs as mint-mark. These bear no resemblance at all, in either type or fabric, to the other Sicilian folles of the early years of Constans II, which have no obverse or reverse inscription, a different portrait, a mark of value in the form M surmounted by the imperial monogram, and neither mint-mark nor officina letter. The contrast is so marked that Ricoti assumed that both series could not be from the same mint and assigned the Inper. Const. ones to Catania instead of to Syracuse. There are a number of reasons, however, against, ascribing them to Sicily at alI. In the first place, the resemblance of their obverse type and lettering to those of the Constantinopolitan foles is so close that it is difficult to believe that both series are not the work of the same die-sinker. Second, they bear the officina letters A-Є, as do the folles of Constantinople, while no other copper coins of Sicily have any officina letters at all. Third, like the Constantinopolitan folles of the same type, they are sometimes found overstruck on Constantinopolitan folles of Heraclius of Year 30, which one could not expect of coins actually minted in Sicily. Finally, the form of the M and the arrangement of ANANEOS around it is carried on by the first issue of Constantinopolitan folles of Constans II. The conclusion seems to me inescapable that these coins were struck at Constantinople for the use of Sicily and not in the island itself, and that in view of their close resemblance to the coins of (c) they should be attributed to Heraclonas.

(f) Dodecanummia of Alexandria having on the obverse a facing beardless bust and on the reverse an M, with cross above, between the customary I and B. These coins, which are rather rare, are normally attributed to Heraclius, but their reverse type continues that of his last issue and they must therefore belong to one of his successors. Philips attributed them to Constans II, since he did not envisage the possibility of any coins for Heraclius Constantine or Heraclonas, but the later seems to me more probable. The Alexandrian authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, were in close touch with Constantinople throughout 641, during the negotiations over the surrender of Egypt to the Arabs, and it is not likely that they would have omitted to strike coins with the effigy of the reigning emperor. The issue may have continued after the accession of Constans II into 642.

(g) The characteristic ‘small head” of Heraclonas is found on three groups of Italian solidi:

1. Coins with the high annular border on the reverse, which is traditionally regarded as a mark of Ravenna. The reverse inscription has the formula AVCC, as had been customary at Ravenna under Heraclius, instead of the AVGЧ which had replaced it in the East. There is one specimen of this class at Dumbarton Oaks (below, No.11), but like the two others known to me its fabric is crude and I suspect that all three are to be regarded as contemporary imitations rather than actual products of the imperial mint.

2. Coins of rough style with K in the reverse field and with reverse inscription ending with a badly formed Γ which often assumes the form of a C. The style of the bust on the obverse is very like that of some specimens of the CONOBK series from Constantinople, but the coins are certainly not eastern. Under Constans II there are coins with a similar reverse, save that they have a high annular border; their obverse type is a large bust, with short beard. The coins of ConstansII are presumably of Ravenna, but the same can scarcely be true of these ascribed here to Heraclonas. The probable mint is Rome, and the K in the field is presumably related to that after CONOB on the coins of Constantinople.

3. Coins of very good style with I in the reverse field and an inscription ending Θ:· . Ricotti, in his study of Byzantine-Sicilian coinage, attributes them to Syracuse, since these symbols on the reverse are amongst those which characterize the Syracusan mint under Constans II. Against such an attribution is the absence from the coin of the linear border, which later becomes one of the most invariable features of Syracusan coins. Since the earliest Sicilian coins of Constans II,however, show other anomalies, not least in the nature of their borders, it seems best to attribute these to the teething troubles of a newly established mint and accept the coin of Heraclonas as one of Syracuse.

(h) Folles and half folles of Ravenna with a beardless bust dated Year 3. The Constantinus of these coins could be either Heraclonas or Constans II, since the En touto nika class was never introduced at Ravenna. But the design of the bust and the size and general appearance of the coins are so unlike the folles of Year 4, which can only belong to Constans II, that I have little hesitation over assigning them to two different emperors.

Among the coins commonly attributed to Constans II there may well be others which belong to Heraclonas, but I hesitate to make any other attributions without more evidence. Obvious candidates for transfer are the half folles of Constantinople (below, p.461, Nos. 91-92) with facing bust having a K as mark of value and Ananeo’ as their inscription, for they would seem to form anatural counterpart to the Inper. Const. folles. The objection to this is their size and weight; they are much too small to be acceptable half folles of this series. Despite their lack of correspondence to the follis types of Constans II, it seems best to leave them to his reign.

The inscriptions INPER CONST and ANANЄOS on the coins of Heraclonas are so anomalous that they merit comment. Imperator had never been a normal title on late Roman coins and is used on only one other occasion in the entire Byzantine series. A possible reason one can put forward for such a break with tradition, involving the introduction of a novel Latin title on coins struck at Constantinople at this date, is that it may have been thought of primarily in connection with the folles intended for Syracuse and was used on the Constantinopolitan series as an afterthought. The other innovation is the inscription Ananeo’, ανανεωσις, i.e. “renewal” or “restoration,” and Warren in his account of the Cyprus hoard compared it with such fourth-century coin inscriptions as Fel(ix) temp(orum) reparatio, celebrating the renewal of a Golden Age, and Restitutor orbis. Although coins of this period can scarcely have been known to the Byzantine mint in the seventh century, it is clear that an attempt was being made, in face of the dangers which threatened the Empire, to revive the ideals of the Constantinian epoch. Such a program, like that implied by the En touto nika of Constans II's coins, is something which one would associate more readily with Heraclius Constantine than with either Heraclonas or Constans II.

(from DOC vol. ll)

Heraclonas' coinage