Byzantine -- Eastern Empire Various Types

various denominations and types, interesting overstrikes.

I have not yet had a chance to photograph them individually; they came to me in a bunch. They are at the moment unsearched. If you want all of them, contact me and we'll come up with a bargain wholesale price.

You get: One Byzantine Coin, Random Selection from Hoard.

The Byzantine Empire existed for more than a thousand years, from A.D. 305-ish to around 1453 or so. You were part of it, you lived and died in the midst of it. Today, they call it the Middle Ages, but actually it is the remains of the Roman Empire in the East, centered around Constantinople, the capital built by Constantine, who was largely responsible for the acceptance and growth of Christianity worldwide.

The Roman Empire had divided in half; the Western half was called Rome, and the modern-day result of this is what is now called the Vatican. Its power was not broken until Mussolini placed the Pope more or less under house arrest in the 1930s, and restricted the Papal power to the Vatican, with a reduced army.

The Eastern part of the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire. It grew from the ashes of the Persian Empire, but was strictly Christian. The modern result of this is the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ottoman Empire.

All empires collapse sooner or later under their own heavy administrative weight. We are witnessing the collapse of several modern empires even now.

If you'll cast your mind back to the time of Basil II, from April 2, 958 AD to December 15, 1025 AD, you'll remember the day when the citizen army was replaced by mercenaries; what a day that was, and you can re-live it and other days like it with the invocational use of a Byzantine coin!

For more specific dates and events, contact me and I'll see what I can come up with.

$95.00