Theopemptos asabanis (sixth/seventh century)

Commentary

Laurent, in his unpublished catalogue of the Shaw collection, reads the title as βασιλικοῦ βανίζαρος (imperial banizor), a hypothesized variant of βαλνίτωρ (balnitor). However beyond hypothesizing the existence of this title, in reading the seal Laurent must hypothesize a strange abbreviation of the world imperial and the reconstruction of letters that do not seem to be present. Much more likely, is that we have here the asabanis, the attendant in charge of a public bath. It is possible that there is a letter before the title asabanis--we might expect a Β here for imperial, although there does not seem to be enough space for it. It is more likely that it is just a dot separating the name and title.