Leo

Intro ...

(813-820)

V

CONSTANTINOPLE

Leo V (813-820). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1626.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєч'. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent and akakia; in field to left, pellet /

Rev: ʟєᴏn ∂єѕᴘᴏτıѕ ᕯ (followed by x). Similar bust of Leo, but wearing loros and holding globe cruciger (not akakia); in field to left, pellet.

…

Leo V (813-820). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1627.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєч'. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent and akakia; in field to left, pellet (sometimes without pellet)/

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτ' ∂єѕᴘᴏ' (followed by є or x or ᴧ). Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia.

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Leo V (813-820). AR Miliaresion. Constantinople mint. Sear 1628.

Obv: ıҺsчs xʀısτчs nıcᴀ. Cross potent on 3 steps; triple (sometimes single) border /

Rev: + ʟєᴏn / s cᴏnsτᴀn / τınє єc ⲑєч / ьᴀꜱıⳑıꜱ ʀᴏ / mᴀıᴏn in five lines; triple (sometimes single) border.

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Leo V (813-820). Æ Follis. Constantinople mint. Sear 1629.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑ'. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent and akakia; sometimes with pellet in field to left /

Rev: Large M, between XXX (to left) and NNN (to right); cross above, A below.

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Leo V (813-820). Æ Follis. Constantinople mint. Sear 1630.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ꜱ cᴏnsτ (or similar). Facing busts of Leo, with short beard (on left), and Constantine, beardless (on right), each wearing crown and chlamys/

Rev: Large M, between XXX (to left) and NNN (to right); cross above, A below.

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SYRACUSE

Leo V (813-820). AV Solidus. Syracuse mint. Sear 1631.

Obv: ʟєᴏɴ ьᴀꜱ (or ьᴀꜱıⳑ). Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and loros, and holding cross potent.

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτın or cᴏnsτᴀnτınᴏs. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger (sometimes with pellet on either side of the cross) and akakia (sometimes omitted ?).

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Leo V (813-820). AV Solidus. Syracuse mint. Sear 1631ᴀ.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєч. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and loros, and holding cross potent; in field to right, ᴧ /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτınᴏ. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia; in field to right, ᴋ.

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Leo V (813-820). AV Solidus. Syracuse mint. Sear 1631ʙ.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєчꜱ. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and loros, and holding cross potent; in field to right, ᴧ /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτınᴏs ь. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia.

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Leo V (813-820). AV Semissis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1632.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєч. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia; in field to right, ᴧ /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτı. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent on globus, and akakia; in field to right, ᴋ.

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Leo V (813-820). AV Semissis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1632ᴀ.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑє. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτı. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent on globus, and akakia; in field to right, cross.

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Leo V (813-820). AV Semissis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1632ʙ.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєч. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia; in field to right, ᴧ /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτınᴏs. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent on globus, and akakia.

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Leo V (813-820). AV Tremissis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1633.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑє. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia; in field to right, ᴧ /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτı. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent, and akakia; in field to right, ᴋ.

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Leo V (813-820). AV Tremissis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1634.

Obv: ʟєᴏn ьᴀcıⳑє (or similar). Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger and akakia /

Rev: cᴏnsτᴀnτ (or similar). Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding cross potent, and akakia; sometimes with cross in field to right.

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Leo V (813-820). Æ Follis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1635.

Obv: No legend. Facing busts of Leo, with short beard (on left) and Constantine, beardless (on right), each wearing crown and chlamys; between their heads, pellet; in field above, cross/

Rev: Large ᴧᴋ with pellet between; in field above, cross.

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Leo V (813-820). Æ Follis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1636.

Obv: Facing bust of Leo, with short beard, wearing crown and loros, and holding cross potent; to left, ᴧ; to right, єᴏ and star /

Rev: ᴋᴏɴcᴛ. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger; on either side of head, c.

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Leo V (813-820). Æ Follis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1637.

Obv: ʟєᴏɴ. Facing bust of Leo, with short beard, wearing crown and loros, and holding cross potent; ᴧ in field to right; cross to the right of the bust /

Rev: cᴏnsτ. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger; in either side of head, ᴋ.

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Leo V (813-820). Æ Follis. Syracuse mint. Sear 1638.

Obv: Facing bust of Leo, with short beard, wearing crown and loros, and holding cross potent; to left ᴧ; to right, єᴏɴ /

Rev: cᴏnsτ. Facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding globe cruciger; to left, ᴋ; to right, ᴏɴ .

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Leo V's reign dates from his coronation on 1 July 813. He proved a good ruler, but his reign was much troubled by revolts, to one of which he finally fell victim. He was murdered by the partisans of his successor Michael II on Christmas Day 820, and Michael, who had been arrested the previous day and was under sentence of death, was immediately crowned as his successor. Leo had had as a colleague Smbat, his eldest son, who had been crowned under the name of Constantine exactly seven years earlier, on Christmas Day 813. In company with his three brothers the boy was mutilated after the murder of Leo and exiled to the Princes Islands. Nothing is known of his subsequent fate.

Leo's coinage follows very closely the pattern of that of the preceding decade. There are two series for the reign, one struck in the name of Leo V alone (July-December 813) and the other in the names of Leo V and Constantine (December 813-December 820). The fact that Leo gave his son the name of Constantine—the choice represented a political program in itself—meant that his reign reproduced a combination already found under Leo I and Constantine V (720-41) and Leo IV and Constantine VI (76-80). Some of the difficulties thus created for numismatists have already been discussed in the context of the reigns of these rulers.

CONSTANTINOPLE

The Constantinopolitan gold coinage of Leo V's reign presents no problems. It consists entirely of solidi, though fractions are likely to have been struck for ceremonial purposes and may yet come to light. Solidi of Leo alone are very rare; none were known to Wroth, and the only recorded specimens are those in the Hermitage (= Tolstoi 1) and the Garrett collection at Baltimore (= Ratto 1794). The solidi of the joint reign of Leo and Constantine show only two emperors and so cannot be confused with those of Leo IV and Constantine VI. They fall into two classes, an earlier one with a pellet preceding the obverse inscription and a later one, much rarer, on which this is absent. The pellet was carried over from Michael I's reign and appears on the rare solidi of Leo I alone, while under Michael II the space left blank on Leo's latest solidi was filled by a star. A few solidi of both classes are known which have slightly larger flans than usual, like those of Nicephorus I and Stauracius (above, pp. 355-6, Nos. 2a.1, 2), but their significance is unknown. The control mark Λ occurs instead of the customary Є or X on a few coins of the group having a pellet before the inscription.

There are two varieties of miliaresion. They are distinguished from those of Leo III/Constantine V and Leo IV/Constantine VI by the presence in the inscription of basileis Romaion, which had only been introduced on the coinage under Michael I. One variety, the earlier, has a single border of dots on both sides and an unbroken reverse inscription, the lettering being unusually large. The other, which is later in date and rather rarer, has the customary three circles of dots and a broken inscription with smaller lettering. The order of striking is determined by the affinities of the first class with the miliaresia of Michael I, where the inscription of the reverse was tending to close up and the circles of dots are sometimes reduced in number. The second class, with the two halves of the inscription widely separated and the upper bar of the cross reaching almost to the inner-most circle of the beading, is closely related to the miliaresion of Michael II. Some years ago I suggested that the miliaresia of Class I might belong to Leo III and Constantine V, but a more satisfactory identification of these later coins has since been reached by Veglery and Zacos.

The folles of Leo's sole reign require no comment, but those with two busts, on which he is associated with Constantine, have been a source of difficulty. Wroth attributed to the reign three types of follis and one half follis with K, to which Tolstoi added a fourth type of follis. The reverse in each case shows a large M between XXX and NNN, usually with an A, rarely with a B, below. Only one of these types really belongs to Leo V; two are much earlier—they still use officina letter B and have corresponding half folles with K—and belong to Leo III, while the anonymous series can best be attributed to Nicephorus I and Stauracius. The revised attributions are summarized in the accompanying table:

W

T

Inscription and Details of Type

Attribution and Reference

7-11

16-19

LЄON SC ONST (or variant). Hands not shown

Leo V and Constantine (p. 378, No.7)

12-14

20

No inscr. Cross above heads. | Hands not shown

Nicephorus I and Stauracius (p.358, No. 5)

15-16

13

LЄON S CON (or variant). Each figure holds akakia

LeoIII and Constantine V (p. 261, Nos. 38-39)

-

14

No inscr. Figures hold a cross potent

Leo III and Constantine V (p.260, No. 36)

On the folles which are definitely attributable to Leo V and Constantine the inscription varies slightly in its ending—it may end CONSTA’, CONST’, or CONS’—and quite considerably in the ways in which it is broken (LЄON SC O NST’, LЄO N SC ONST’, etc.). These varieties have been treated below, for convenience of reference, as if they were distinct sub-classes, but they were evidently determined by the size and placing of the two busts and do not reflect any organizational pattern in the mint. Some of the rarer varieties may be amongst the earliest in date, before the pattern had settled down to that of Class 2a, which is more common than the others. The die features of a number of specimens in various collections have been described by Metcalf.

SICILY

The Sicilian coinage of Leo V, more particularly the copper, is common and was evidently struck in quantity. A surprising feature is the absence of any coins of Leo's sole reign, which lasted for five months, but since his Constantinopolitan issues of the same period are rare, some Sicilian coins may turn up in due course.

The gold coins are uniform in their general design, but the later issues are of smaller module than usual and mark the beginning of the transition from solidi of normal size to the semi-globular ones of the reigns of Michael II and Theophilus. The solidi all show Leo wearing a loros and holding a cross potent, Constantine wearing a chlamys.and holding a globus cruciger and an akakia. Only the top of the latter is visible and often its existence has to be surmised. The semisses and tremisses show each emperor wearing a chlamys; Leo holds a globus cruciger by its globe and Constantine either a cross potent on globus (semisis) or a cross potent on base (tremisis), the object in either case being held by the shaft. The design of the hands is very curious. Leo's forefinger, on the solidus, does not point at his head, as it does on Constantinopolitan solidi, but curves over and downward like an eagle's beak, so that it has sometimes been mistaken for part of the edge of a globus cruciger. On the tremissis the fingers of Constantine's hand holding the cross potent are shown as short, straight strokes pointing diagonally outward, while the thumb and two lines of the edge of the chlamys do the same inward, so that taken together they have a feather-like appearance.

All denominations of Class I of the gold have Λ (for Λέων) in the obverse field, K (for Κωνσταντῖνος) in the reverse one. These letters are scarcely necessary, since the inscriptions are usually clear, but their presence may have been ordered because of the obscurity of the inscriptions in the immediately preceding reigns. The same device had been earlier used on coins of Leo III and Constantine V attributed to Naples (above, p.271, Nos. 60-61). Class II is without letters in the field, but the semisis and tremisis have a cross on the reverse. The later solidi of Clas II, which are smaller in module, are of two varieties, one having three pellets instead of one in the V of Leo's loros, the other having apelet on either side of the globe of Constantine's globus cruciger. Since both features are found again on coins of Michael II it is possible that two separate officinae were at work: the coins are too alike for separate mints to be conceivable. Mules between Classes I and II are known. Semisses and tremisses of late eighth-century rulers have sometimes been attributed to Leo V in error, but Leo V's coins always have well-formed letters and a substantial part of their inscriptions on flan.

The Sicilian folles show much variation in lettering and spelling and in the arrangement of the inscription in the field. One is naturally tempted to reattribute some of them, on the analogy of the Constantinopolitan issues, to the reigns of Leo III andConstantine V or of Leo IV and Constantine VI, which are very ill supplied. Two of the groups of rough workmanship which employ the letter-form N in their inscriptions, instead of the N which is consistently used on the gold, are obvious candidates for such a transfer, particularly since the letters C and I in the reverse field of one of them would link with that on gold coins ascribed to Leo III (above, pp. 265-6, Nos. 44, 47, 49). But the design of the busts, many of the details (e.g. the eyes formed by a pellet with an inverted V above and nothing below), and the general fabric belong to the early ninth century. The class having two busts side by side, which is of greatly improved design and fabric and has the eyes quite differently formed, could also be envisaged as belonging to Leo IV and Constantine VI. The coins are quite close, however, to those of Michael IT, and since there is no positive evidence, such as might be provided by hoards, in favor of either of these reattributions, I have preferred to leave everything provisionally to Leo V.
The coins form two main groups. The first consists of a series of poorly struck pieces on irregular flans, like those of the reigns of Nicephorus I and Michael I, having a bust on both obverse and reverse. The second consists of much better struck pieces having no inscriptions, two busts on the obverse closely modelled on those of the folles of Constantinople, and the letters Λ and K occupying the whole field of the reverses. A provisional order of issue is set out in the accompanying table, but since it is based on no more than reasonable probabilities—no overstrikes are known and no hoards have been recorded—it cannot be regarded as certain. The coins with ΛK are in general heavier than those of the earlier classes, but it has been suggested that some, of unusually low weight, may be half folles. These lighter coins are generally struck with normal dies on small, irregularly shaped flans, so that much of the design is absent, but there are those on which the letters ΛK are smaller than usual, c.7mm tall instead of c. 11mm.

THERE IS A TABLE MISSING (PAGE 374)

(from DOC vol. lll)

Coinage