N., spatharios and archon of Dalmatia (eighth/ninth century)
Obverse
Cruciform invocative monogram (indeterminate type with a Φ at the center); visible in the two lower quarters: ΔΛΩ. No visible border.
Κύριε/Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ
Reverse
Inscription. Wreath border.
..
παθαρ
αρχον.
δαλματι
σ
.... σπαθαρίῳ καὶ ἄρχοντι Δαλματίας
Obverse
Cruciform invocative monogram (indeterminate type with a Φ at the center); visible in the two lower quarters: ΔΛΩ. No visible border.
Κύριε/Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ
Reverse
Inscription. Wreath border.
..
παθαρ
αρχον.
δαλματι
σ
.... σπαθαρίῳ καὶ ἄρχοντι Δαλματίας
| Accession number | BZS.1958.106.3588 |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 18.0 mm |
| Previous Editions | DO Seals 1, no. 14.2. |
Translation
Κύριε/Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ ... σπαθαρίῳ καὶ ἄρχοντι Δαλματίας.
Lord/Theotokos, help your servant ... spatharios and archon of Dalmatia.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 1: Italy, North of the Balkans, North of the Black Sea (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
- Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles (Open in Zotero)
- Corinth, Vol. 12, The Minor Objects (Open in Zotero)
- De Thematibus (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantium on the Balkans: studies on the Byzantine administration and the Southern Slavs from the VIIth to the XIIth centuries (Open in Zotero)
- L’amministrazione bizantina in Dalmazia (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantinische Rang- und Ämterstruktur im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert: Faktoren und Tendenzen ihrer Entwicklung (Open in Zotero)
- Sigillographie de l’Empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
The monogram of the obv. is problematic: Φεοτόκε βοήφει, as Zacos supposed (pl. 258, no. LIV), instead of Θεοτόκε βοήθει? Is this an error due to local phonetics, or should one turn this monogram 90 degrees in order to read it properly?
A Byzantine archon of Dalmatia is mentioned in the Uspenskij Taktikon (842-43: Listes, 57, line 12) and on several seals including perhaps Pančenko, no. 389. The toponym appears with the variants Δαλματία, Δελματία (cf. also Corinth XII, no. 2697), even Δερματία (DO Seals 1, no. 14.1). The territory encompassed by this designation was largely restricted to the Adriatic coast, a situation that continued into the eleventh century. Among the more prominent towns of Dalmatia were Kotor, Dubrovnik, Split, Trogir, and Zadar. Ferluga has suggested that the "archon" of Dalmatia was the "prior" of Zadar, the leading official of the most important town in the region in the ninth century (ibid., 143).
In Ferluga's view, Dalmatia was established as a theme with its own strategos in the early years of the reign of Basil I (867-886) and appears as such in all subsequent lists of precedence down to the late tenth century (Philotheos, Beneševič Taktikon, Escorial Taktikon, but not in De Them.). However, it is not impossible that a strategos of Dalmatia had existed (for a limited time?) in the first half of the ninth century, as we have some seals of this period (Sig., 205-6; doubts expressed by Seibt, JÖB 30 [1981] 338 ff; but note the form of letter Β) mentioning a Bryennios strategos of Dalmatia as well as a protomandator of Dalmatia who would have been a subordinate of the strategos (cf. Listes, 110 note 67). A Bryenas strategos is also mentioned in the letters of Theodore Stoudites (d. 826: PG 99, col. 1545), the mid-ninth century (De Adm. Imp., chap. 50, line 10); here Bryennios had become a family name. See Ferluga, Byzantium and idem, Dalmazia, passim; see also Winkelmann, Ämterstruktur, 116-17.