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Nicholas Rhadenos, imperial protospatharios and judge of Lykandos (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of the Mother of God holding the Christ child on her left arm. Sigla: -θ̅υ : Μή(τη)ρ Θ(εο)ῦ. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines, decorations above and below. Border of dots.


+νικο
λο̅⸣ σπ
θρ,Sκριτ,
τολεικν
δορδιν

Νικόλαο(ς) β(ασιλικὸς) (πρωτο)σπαθάρ(ιος) (καὶ) κριτ(ὴς) το Λεικανδ(οῦ) ὁ ῾Ραδιν(ός)

Obverse

Bust of the Mother of God holding the Christ child on her left arm. Sigla: -θ̅υ : Μή(τη)ρ Θ(εο)ῦ. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines, decorations above and below. Border of dots.


+νικο
λο̅⸣ σπ
θρ,Sκριτ,
τολεικν
δορδιν

Νικόλαο(ς) β(ασιλικὸς) (πρωτο)σπαθάρ(ιος) (καὶ) κριτ(ὴς) το Λεικανδ(οῦ) ὁ ῾Ραδιν(ός)

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.539
Diameter 25.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 4, no. 53.3b. See also PBW : Nikolaos 20133.

Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore.

Translation

Νικόλαος βασιλικὸς πρωτοσπαθάριος καὶ κριτὴς τοῦ Λεικανδοῦ ὁ ῾Ραδινός.

Nicholas Rhadenos, imperial protospatharios and judge of Lykandos.

Commentary

This seal and BZS.1947.2.655 come from the same boulloterion.

Lykandos or Likandos or Likandon (formerly Lapara), mentioned as a feminine name but sometimes also as a masculine, was situated in the region east of Caesarea; it was first a kleisoura created by the Armenian Melias. From 916 until the 11th c. it was the seat first of a strategos (whose authority extended also over neighboring Tzamandos, cf. De Adm. Imp. ch. 50, l. 157 and Canard, Hamdanides, 780 [954, mention of a “patrice de Lykandos et de Tzamandos"]) and later of a katepano. The seal of a katepano τῶν Λυκανδνῶν (Zacos, Seals II, no. 437) shows that this official was at the head of a military contingent. The theme is attested until the reign of Romanos IV Diogenes (Attaleiates, 105).  It had a normal administration including protonotarioi (two seals in Sig., 282, 283, another one in Pancenko, Katalog, no. 471 and Sandrovskaja, Sfragistika, no. 818). See Hild-Restle, Kappadokien, 224-226; Oikonomides, Listes, 350; G. Dédéyan, Mleh le Grand, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes 15 (1981) 73-102; Mikra Asia them., 307-313, 475-478 (T. Lounghis).


Bibliography