Sergios merarches of Hellas (ninth/tenth century)
Obverse
Crude bust of St. Nicholas; gestures unclear. Inscription in two columns. Ο|Ν|Κ: Ὁ ἅγιος Νικόλαος. Border of dots.
Reverse
Crudely engraved inscription of four lines. Border of dots.
ΣΕΡΓΙ
ΟΣΜΕΡ
ΡΧΗΣΕ
ΛΔΟΣ
Σέργιος μεράρχης Ἑλάδος
Obverse
Crude bust of St. Nicholas; gestures unclear. Inscription in two columns. Ο|Ν|Κ: Ὁ ἅγιος Νικόλαος. Border of dots.
Reverse
Crudely engraved inscription of four lines. Border of dots.
ΣΕΡΓΙ
ΟΣΜΕΡ
ΡΧΗΣΕ
ΛΔΟΣ
Σέργιος μεράρχης Ἑλάδος
| Accession number | BZS.1958.106.2012 |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 25.0 mm |
| Previous Editions | DO Seals 2, no. 8.31. |
Translation
Σέργιος μεράρχης Ἑλάδος.
Sergios, merarches of Hellas.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 2: South of the Balkans, the Islands, South of Asia Minor (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
- Du stratège de thème au duc: chronologie de l’évolution au cours du XIe siècle (Open in Zotero)
- Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles (Open in Zotero)
- Hellas und Thessalia (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantinische Rang- und Ämterstruktur im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert: Faktoren und Tendenzen ihrer Entwicklung (Open in Zotero)
- Die byzantinische Armee im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert: Studien zur Organisation der Tagmata (Open in Zotero)
- Griechische Paleographie (Open in Zotero)
- La paléographie grecque et byzantine (Open in Zotero)
- Tὰ χαράγματα τοῦ Παρθενῶς (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
The present seal is the work of a poorly trained (if at all) craftsman and does not fit in with any trends in sigillographic epigraphy. We propose a ninth or tenth century date without much conviction because the very peculiar form of the letter α () must have been borrowed from common script; the closest parallels that we found are in miniscule manuscripts of 895, 914, 964 (Gardthausen, Palaeographie, pl. 5 and 6), in the ninth century capital script of cod. Vatic. gr. 2059 (La Paléographie grecque et byzantine [Paris, 1977], 117, pl. 9), and from 10th century Parthenon graffiti, especially from the year 912 (Orlandos-Branouses, no. 8).
The merarches, an official similar to (and eventually assimilated into) the tourmarches, is known from texts and seals dating from the 10th-12th centuries (Listes, 109, note 65). There was normally only one merarches per theme; consequently there is no need to seek a special explanation for the expression merarches of Hellas, which appears on our seal.