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Sophronios proedros (archbishop or metropolitan) of Smyrna (ninth/tenth century)

 
 

Obverse

Faint bust of St. Polycarp holding a book in his left hand. On either side a vertical inscription: ο|.|γι|ο|σ-π|ολ|υκα|ρπ.|σ : ὁ [ἅ]γιος Πολύκαρπ[ο]ς. No border visible.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines. Border of dots.

σμυρν
προεδρου
σφραγειμ.
σωφρον

Σμύρν(ης) προέδρου σφραγ(ίς) εἰμ[ι] Σωφρον(ίου)

Obverse

Faint bust of St. Polycarp holding a book in his left hand. On either side a vertical inscription: ο|.|γι|ο|σ-π|ολ|υκα|ρπ.|σ : ὁ [ἅ]γιος Πολύκαρπ[ο]ς. No border visible.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines. Border of dots.

σμυρν
προεδρου
σφραγειμ.
σωφρον

Σμύρν(ης) προέδρου σφραγ(ίς) εἰμ[ι] Σωφρον(ίου)

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.998
Diameter 30.0 mm; field: 27.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 35.4.

Laurent, Corpus V/1, no. 740 (slightly different reading and date). See also Wassiliou-Seibt, Siegel mit metrischen Legenden II, no. 2213 (dating the seal to the second half of the ninth century).

Translation

Σμύρνης προέδρου σφραγίς εἰμι Σωφρονίου.

I am the seal of Sophronios, proedros of Smyrna.

Commentary

This is a twelve-syllable verse that appears hypermetric in written form, but which when spoken aloud surely condensed the final two syllables (of ιου) into one; or else the speaker used a more popular and abridged form of the name like Σωφρόνη.

The prosodic (if not outright metrical) character of the inscription no doubt led Laurent to date this specimen to the tenth/eleventh century. But at the end of line 1, and again at the middle of line 3 and the end of line 4, we have abbreviation signs in the shape of a thin, trailing S which disappears after the ninth century (Dated Seals, 158, line 14). The general appearance of the epigraphy also points to a ninth/tenth-century date (cf. Dated Seals, nos. 50-56). Hence the date that we assign to this seal, given that metrical seals appear as early as the eighth century (cf. DO Seals 2, no. 36.8, when the term proedros was used to indicate a prelate).

Smyrna (modern Izmir) was an important city, port, and economic center of the province of Asia, and served in the tenth century as residence of the strategos of Samos (De Them., chap. XVI, line 16). It had a hinterland with extensive agricultural production that is illustrated by our seals of horreiarioi.

At first, Smyrna was a simple bishopric of Ephesos, but then (mid-fifth century) it became an autocephalous archbishopric. Finally it is attested as a metropolis from 869 onward. This evolution is reflected in the notitiae.

See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 563; Arhweiler, Smyrne, passim; Brandes, Städte, 126-26; ODB III, 1919-20.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 3: West, Northwest, and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Open in Zotero)
  • De Thematibus (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
  • L’histoire et la géographie de la région de Smyrne entre les deux occupations turques (1081-1317), particulièrement au XIIIe siècle (Open in Zotero)
  • Die Städte Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (Open in Zotero)
  • A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Seals (Open in Zotero)
  • Corpus der byzantinischen Siegel mit metrischen Legenden, Vol. 2, Siegellegenden von Ny bis inklusive Sphragis (Open in Zotero)