On the 21st of March 629, a Novel was issued by Heraclius and his son Heraclius Constantine. Unlike previous official documents, this law was not signed with the traditional imperial titles, instead, the emperor and his son were referred to as πιστοὶ ἐν Χριστῷ βασιλεῖς (Basilei faithful in Christ). This title change occurred during the…
The death of a Byzantine emperor marked not only the end of a reign but also the beginning of new political and historical developments within the empire. As such, it is consistently recorded in Byzantine historiography. However, while the fact of an emperor’s death is well documented, far less attention is given to the circumstances…
This paper explores the relatively rare yet symbolically significant phenomenon of depicting empresses on Byzantine coins. Despite the empire’s remarkable longevity and a succession of nearly eighty emperors, only about seventeen imperial women are known to have appeared on coinage, from the sixth to the fourteenth century. This scarcity invites a closer examination of the…