Alexandros hypatos, imperial spatharios and archon of Mesembria (eighth century)
Obverse
Cruciform invocative monogram (type V); in the quarters: ΑΛΕΞΑΝ|.Ρ. Indeterminate border.
Θεοτόκε βοήθει Ἀλεξάνδρῳ
Reverse
Inscription of six lines. Wreath border.
υπ.
τβσι/
.πθρι
ρχοντι
μεσημβρ
ισ
ὑπάτῳ, βασιλικῷ σπαθαρίῳ, καὶ ἄρχοντι Μεσημβρίας
Obverse
Cruciform invocative monogram (type V); in the quarters: ΑΛΕΞΑΝ|.Ρ. Indeterminate border.
Θεοτόκε βοήθει Ἀλεξάνδρῳ
Reverse
Inscription of six lines. Wreath border.
υπ.
τβσι/
.πθρι
ρχοντι
μεσημβρ
ισ
ὑπάτῳ, βασιλικῷ σπαθαρίῳ, καὶ ἄρχοντι Μεσημβρίας
| Accession number | BZS.1955.1.644 |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 34.0 mm |
| Previous Editions | DO Seals 1, no. 77.1. |
Translation
Θεοτόκε βοήθει Ἀλεξάνδρῳ ὑπάτῳ, βασιλικῷ σπαθαρίῳ, καὶ ἄρχοντι Μεσημβρίας.
Theotokos, help Alexandros hypatos, imperial spatharios, and archon of Mesembria.
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)
- Tribute or Trade?: The Byzantine-Bulgarian Treaty of 716 (Open in Zotero)
- Mesembria in the Ninth Century: Epigraphical Evidence (Open in Zotero)
- Sceaux byzantins du musée de Constantinople (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 2 (Open in Zotero)
- Ἡ συνέχεια τῆς Χρονογραφίας τοῦ Ἰωάννου Σκυλίτση (Open in Zotero)
- La Thrace Orientale et La Mer Noire: Géographie Ecclésiastique et Prosopographie (VIIIe-XIIe Siècles) (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
Modern Nessebǎr, on the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea; Greek Μεσημβρία or, quite often, Μεσεμβρία. After the installation of the Bulgarians south of of the Danube, the city became a Byzantine outpost, a center where commercial transactions took place in conformity with the treaties between Byzantium and Bulgaria (hence the numerous seals of kommerkiarioi and of kommerkia of Mesembria listed with bibliography by Zacos-Veglery I, 182-84). Taken by Krum in 812, the city was later destroyed by the Bulgarians and recaptured by the Byzantines during the reign of Basil I. It was still an important outpost, but its contacts with Constantinople were by sea; thus it never acquired its former commercial importance. Since the year 812, these exchanges centered in the border town of Develtos. See N. Oikonomides, "Tribute or Trade? The Byzantine-Bulgarian Treaty of 716," 29-31; idem, "Mesembria in the Ninrht Century: Epigraphical Evidence," 269-73 (with bibliography). It seems that before 812 the administration of the city was in the hands of an archon (DO Seals 1, no. 77.1-3, and Ebersolt, Sceaux, 19); after its recapture, in the tenth/eleventh century (DO Seals 1, no. 77.4), we find an ek prosopou (who presumably replaced a strategos) and later, in the eleventh century, a katepano of Mesembria (Zacos, Seals II, no. 1059; cf. Skylitzes Cont., 184, 185), who seems to have been a Slav. The ecclesiastical see of Mesembria evolved in a parallel manner: bishopric, then archbishopric (from the end of the 7th century), and metropolis (after 1032): Asdracha, Thrace orientale, 243-44, 289-91.