Leo

Intro ...

(886-912)

V

l

CONSTANTINOPLE

Leo VI the Wise (886-912). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1723.

Obv: + mᴀʀıᴀ +. Facing bust of the Virgin orans, wearing pallium and maphorium; in field to left, ᴍᴘ; to right, ⲑч; [lines above ᴍᴘ ⲑч].

Rev: ʟєᴏn єи x · ω ьᴀꜱıⳑєчꜱ ʀᴏmωи. Bust facing, with long beard, wearing crown and jewelled chlamys, and holding patriarchal cross on globus.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1724.

Obv: + mᴀʀıᴀ +. Facing bust of the Virgin orans, wearing pallium and maphorium; in field to left, ᴍᴘ; to right, ⲑч; [lines above ᴍᴘ ⲑч].

Rev: ʟєᴏn єn ᴄʀıꜱᴛᴏ ьᴀꜱıⳑєчꜱ ʀᴏmєᴏn. Bust facing, with long beard, wearing crown and jewelled chlamys, and holding patriarchal cross on globus.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). AV Solidus. Constantinople mint. Sear 1725.

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

Rev: ʟєᴏn єᴛ cᴏnsτᴀnτ’ ᴀчςς’ ʀᴏm’ (both τ’s in cᴏnsτᴀnτ are retrograde). Leo (left) and Constantine (right) standing facing, each wearing crown, divitision and loros, and holding between them long patriarchal cross; each holding globus cruciger.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). AR Miliaresion. Constantinople mint. Sear 1726.

Obv: ıҺsчs xʀısτчs nıcᴀ. Cross potent on three steps, globus beneath; triple border.

Rev: + ʟєωn / єn x ፞ω єᴠ / sєьʜs ьᴀꜱı / ⳑєᴠꜱ ʀω / mᴀıωn in five lines; triple border ornamented with 8 equally spaced globules.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). AR Miliaresion. Constantinople mint. Sear 1727.

Obv: ıҺsчs xʀısτчs nıcᴀ. Cross potent on three steps, globus beneath; triple border.

Rev: + ʟєᴏn ᴄє / cᴏnsᴛᴀnᴛı / n’ єn x ፞ω єᴠ / sєьıs ьᴀꜱı / ⳑı’ ʀᴏm’ in five lines; triple border ornamented with 8 equally spaced globules.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Follis. Constantinople mint. Sear 1728.

Obv: + ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєᴠꜱ ʀᴏm’ ᕯ. Leo enthroned facing, wearing crown and loros, and holding labarum and akakia; thorne has curved arms and ornamented back.

Rev: + ʟєᴏn / єn ⲑєᴏ ьᴀ / ꜱıⳑєᴠꜱ ʀ / ᴏmєᴏn in four lines.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Follis. Constantinople mint. Sear 1729.

Obv: + ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєᴠꜱ ʀᴏm’. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding akakia in left hand.

Rev: + ʟєᴏn / єn ⲑєᴏ ьᴀ / ꜱıⳑєᴠꜱ ʀ / ᴏmєᴏn in four lines.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Follis. Constantinople mint. Sear 1730.

Obv: + ʟєᴏn ꜱ ᴀⳑє𝓧ᴀnɢʀᴏꜱ. Leo (left) and Alexander (right) seated facing on double throne, each wearing crown and loros, and holding between them labarum.

Rev: + ʟєᴏn / ꜱ ᴀⳑє𝓧ᴀn / ɢʀᴏꜱ ьᴀꜱıⳑ’ (or ьᴀꜱıⳑ) / ʀᴏmєᴏn in four lines.

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CHERSON

Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Flat (c. 17mm). Cherson mint. Sear 1731.

Obv: Large ᴧє.

Rev: Cross floriate on two or three steps; in field to left and right, pellets.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Flat (c. 17mm). Cherson mint. Sear 1732.

Obv: No legend. Bust of Leo facing, wearing crown and chlamys.

Rev: Patriarchal cross on globus, between ᴧ and є.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Flat (c. 17mm). Cherson mint. Sear 1733.

Obv: Large ᴧᴀ.

Rev: Cross floriate on two or three steps; in field to left and right, pellets.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Flat (c. 17mm). Cherson mint. Sear 1734.

Obv: Patriarchal cross between ᴧ and ᴀ.

Rev: Cross floriate on two or three steps; in field to left and right, pellets.

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UNCERTAIN PROVINCIAL MINT

Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Follis. Uncertain Provincial mint. Sear 1735.

Obv: + ʟєᴏn ьᴀꜱıⳑєᴠꜱ ʀᴏm’. Bust facing, with short beard, wearing crown and chlamys, and holding akakia in left hand.

Rev: + ʟєᴏn / єn ⲑєᴏ ьᴀ / ꜱıⳑєᴠꜱ ʀ / ᴏmєᴏn in four lines.

Notes: same type as the Constantinopolitan follis SB 1729, but of coarser style.

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Leo VI the Wise (886-912). Æ Half follis (?). Uncertain Provincial mint. Sear 1736.

Obv: + ʟєᴏn ꜱ ᴀⳑє𝓧ᴀ. Facing busts of Leo with short beard (left) and Alexander beardless (right), each wearing crown and loros, and holding between them labarum.

Rev: + ʟєᴏn / ꜱ ᴀⳑє𝓧ᴀn / ɢʀᴏꜱ ьᴀꜱıⳑ / ʀᴏmєᴏn in four lines.

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Leo VI had been associated on the throne by his father in 870, so that his succession in 886 occasioned no difficulty. In theory he was associated with his younger brother Alexander, and the unsatisfactory relations between them took second place only to Leo's matrimonial troubles during his long reign. The new emperor seems to have believed that he was Michael III’s son, not Basil's, for although in his funeral oration on the later the outward decencies were preserved, almost his first act as effective ruler was to bring back Michael’s body from its humble tomb at Chrysopolis and inter it with those of other emperors in the Church of the Holy Apostles. Alexander was kept in the background throughout the reign. But although the two brothers were frequently on bad terms, there is no evidence that Alexander was ever formally deprived of the crown, as Lambros and some other scholars have supposed.

In 882 Leo was married by Basil to a lady named Theophano, sorely against his wishes, and his life was thenceforward dominated by his matrimonial difficulties. Theophano, who is venerated as a saint by the Greek Church, died in 897 without having provided her husband with an heir. Leo promptly married in turn his mistress Zoe (898) and Eudocia Baiana (900), but each died a year after her marriage, leaving the emperor still without a son. Third marriages were condemned both by canon law and by Leo's own legislation; fourth marriages were barely conceivable. But on 3 September 905 Leo had a son by his current mistress, Zoe Carbonopsina, and it was necessary to legalize the boy’s position if the succession was to be assured. On 6 January 906 the patriarch agreed to the baptism of the child in Saint Sophia on condition that Leo separated from his mother. A few days later the emperor showed how little he cared for his undertakings by marrying Zoe and raising her to the dignity of Augusta. With papal assistance he managed to ride out the ensuing storm, and on 15 May 908 the three-year-old Constantine was crowned co-Augustus by his father. Alexander, however, was stilalive, so that when Leo died on 1 May 912, Alexander and Constantine were jointly his successors.

Leo's coinage presents a number of puzzling features. The chief solidus type is one of Leo and Constantine VII, and so must have been struck between 908 and 912. Apart from it there is only a rare ceremonial coinage in the name of Leo alone, which means that during most of the reign no gold can have been struck at all. The folles, on the other hand, were all issued in the names ofLeo and Alexander or of Leo alone; there are none ofLeo and Constantine. The two mints were Constantinople and Cherson, the later producing a local coinage and the products ofConstantinople, which were stylistically very uniform, supplying the rest of the Empire. As under Basil I, however, there were half folles of rough fabric which at first sight seem to be provincial in character, but which should probably be ascribed to Constantinople.

Class I of the solidus, which is extremely rare, has on the obverse a facing bust of the Virgin orans, with the inscription +MARIA+. It was the first time that the Virgin had been shown on any Byzantine coin. The reverse has the facing bust of the emperor with a long beard, wearing a heavy crown and a chlamys with a richly decorated tablion. The revival of naturalistic portraiture was to influence the occasional issues of Constantine VII's reign, as well as much of the coinage of the eleventh century. There are two varieties of inscription, one with ЄN X'ω and the spelling ROMωN, the other, which is much commoner and has rather smaller lettering, with ЄN CRISTO and ROMЄON. Class II has on the obverse a seated figure of Christ (Type 2), modified from that used on the solidi of Basil I, and on the reverse the standing figures of Leo and Constantine, each wearing a loros and holding a globus cruciger, supporting between them a patriarchal cross. The figures are purely conventional, Constantine being shown as a boy some fifteen years old when in fact he was only an infant, but the design as a whole is well balanced and successful. The same is true of the figure of Christ on the obverse. The proportions and details of the seated figure and the throne are much better rendered than had been those of the seated Christ on the coins ofBasil. The folds of the clothing are depicted more realistically; the book on Christ’s knee is held in place by his left hand clasping its outer edge. Only the position of the right hand remains clumsy; it protrudes above the sling of the cloak instead of being lifted high, as on the earlier representation, and faces inward in the characteristic gesture of the Christ Pantocrator. The icon represented must in fact be different from that of Basil’s coins. Bellinger has suggested that it might be the seated Christ of the narthex of Saint Sophia, which if correct would provide an identification for the kneeling emperor in the mosaic, but the gestures of benediction are different in the two cases. No doubt the coin represents one of the great mosaics completed in the late ninth century, but we have no evidence as to which it may have been.

The date of Class II, which is common, offers no problems; it must have been struck between 908 and 912. The rarity and the unusual type of Class I are equally difficult to explain. Wroth was inclined to regard the coin as representing a special issue struck by Leo at his “coronation,” by which, presumably, he meant his accession as μεγας βασιλεὐς, for Leo had been crowned as a child and would not have been crowned again in 886. The objection to this, as Wroth recognized, is that the portrait on the coins is that of a much older man, and while conventional portraits took little account of age, a characterized portrait could scarcely turn a youth of twenty into a long-bearded sage in his forties or fifties. Lambros argued that the coins were late, but, while this is almost certainly the case, his reasoning will not bear examination, since he believed that Leo ceased to regard Alexander as joint emperor in c. 904 and that all coins in Leo's name alone were subsequent to this date. Probably the coin was struck on the occasion of some ceremony or event in which a church or image of the Virgin played a prominent role, but none of our sources throw any light on what this may have been. Leo's first wife, St. Theophano, died at Blachernae, the most prominent shrine of the Virgin in the city, and his mistress Zoe was miraculously healed of diabolic possession by the girdle of the Virgin in the church of the Chalcoprateia, but it seems unlikely that either of these circumstances would have provided the occasion for the coin. The completion of one of the several churches begun by Basil I and dedicated to the Virgin may possibly be the answer, but for the moment the date and circumstances of the issue of the coin must be left an open question. All one can say is that it probably belongs to the later years of the reign.

This in effect means that in the first two decades of Leo’s reign, between 886 and 908, no solidi were struck at all. Why this should have been so is difficult to understand; gold does not seem to have been in short supply, and one would have expected that Leo, denied any place on the solidus during Basil’s reign, would have seized the earliest possible opportunity of minting in his own name. Whatever the reason, however, it would seem that the interruption in the issue of gold is the explanation of a curious piece of legislation which dates from his reign. The regular melting and reminting of the coin brought to the treasury in the form of taxes ensured that the gold coinage was, in normal times, regularly renewed, and it seems that in addition some emperors formally demonetized the coins of their predecessors, though the mixed character of coin hoards suggests that this can only have been very occasionally done or was in practice ineffective. It would raise difficulties for merchants and tax-collectors, however, when no gold coins of a reigning emperor existed at all; so it is not surprising that Leo sharply condemned the practice, ordering that coins of all emperors, provided they were genuine and of the proper weight and fineness, should pass current at the same rate.

Leo's miliaresia are common and present no difficulties. Class I, in the name of Leo alone, can be dated 886-908; Class II, in those of Leo and Constantine, belongs to 908-12. The coins differ from their predecessors in minor particulars: Leo VI, and subsequently his son, assume for the first time on the coins the title eusebes, which replaces the pistos of Theophilus, Michael, and Basil, and Leo terms himself emperor ЄN X'ω) instead of ЄC ΘЄЧ, the traditional formula of the Isaurian and Amorian periods. The middle of the three outer circles of dots which forms the border on the obverse is decorated with eight large globules. These are presumably imitated from those on the Abbasid dirhem, but at the same time represent a development of the four pellets which had marked the innermost border of dots on the miliaresia of Basil I.

Two classes of follis were struck in the name of Leo VI alone and one in those of Leo and Alexander. The order of issue is uncertain; it could be satisfactorily established only on the basis of hoards, overstrikes, or mules, and no positive evidence regarding any of these seems to be available. The coins of two of the classes are very common, and they all tend to be found in good condition. The coins with the bust of Leo, which are novel in design and were the only one of the three types to be imitated under Constantine VII, notably on a ceremonial issue of Christopher which can be assigned to 921 (below, Pl. XXXVIII. 24), should almost certainly be placed last, but it is difficult to establish the order of the other two classes. Both are identical with types issued under Basil I, and it seems most natural to put first the type with Leo enthroned, which is much rarer than the other, on the ground that this continues what appears to be the last of Basil’s issues. Leo would thus have first shown himself alone on his coinage, but subsequently, lacking an heir, would have reconciled himself to the admission of Alexander as a colleague. It could on the other hand be argued that at first Leo would have had to accept his brother as co-Augustus, in accordance with Basil's wishes, and only after he had been on the throne for a few years would he have felt strong enough to eliminate Alexander from the coinage. This would put first the type with two seated figures, an order supported by three facts: that al half folles are of a type which presupposes the existence of this class of follis; that a small hoard of eleven coins found at Bratimir in 1957 seems to have included only those types with Leo alone, which suggests that these were consecutive issues; and that the two types with Leo alone have identical reverse inscriptions. The evidence either way, however, is quite inconclusive, and the sequence given in the catalogue, that of a short seated-figure issue followed by much lengthier issues of Leo and Alexander and of Leo alone, cannot be regarded as other than hypothetical. The dates proposed are based on rough estimates of the comparative rarity of the coins, and not too much weight can be attached to them.

The half folles are a problem to themselves. Their obverse type consists of the two busts of Leo and Alexander holding a labarum, but the “busts” are in fact the upper parts of two seated figures, like those of Class 2 of the follis; one can sometimes see elements of the upper part of the throne to the left or right. On the reverse is an inscription in four lines. The reverses are sometimes struck with dies intended for the denomination, c.17mm in diameter, but often a follis die has been used instead, the letters being large and parts of the inscription consequently off flan. The obverse dies, on the other hand, have always been made for the denomination; this is clear from the position at which the inscription begins and the fact that the seated figures ordinarily wear a traditional loros, while on the corresponding folles they always wear a modified one. The untidy fabric and inferior design of the coins suggest that they are from a provincial mint, though Wroth treated them as Constantinopolitan. Mr. Bellinger, in the first draft of this Catalogue, classified them as provincial, and I was originally of the same opinion. The fact that some of them were struck with follis reverse dies seems to rule this out, and I would now treat them as Constantinopolitan, though the work of less skilful craftsmen than were employed for the foles.

The coinage of Cherson under Leo VI is interesting mainly because it saw the introduction of a type with facing bust, presumably suggested by the unusual solidus type from Constantinople, which was to continue into the reign of Constantine VII. There are coins with the first two letters of Leo's own name (ΛЄ) and with the initials of Leo and Alexander (ΛA), but the order of issue is quite uncertain.

(from DOC vol. lll)

Coinage