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Andronikos Doukas, protoproedros, protovestiarios and domestikos of the Schools of the East (ca. 1072-77)

 
 

Obverse

The Virgin seated on a high-backed throne, holding Christ before her. Inscriptions: ΘΥ : Μήτηρ Θεοῦ. Along a border of tight dots, inscription.

+ΘΚΕ..ΘΤΣΔΛ,

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλ

Reverse

Inscription of nine lines preceded by an ornament. Border of tight dots.


ΑΝΔΡΟΝΙ
ΚΠΡΤ,ΠΡΟ
ΕΔΡΠΡΤ.
ΕΣΤΙΑΡΙ..
ΔΟΜΕΣΤΙΚ
.ΝΣΧΟΛΝ
ΤΗΣΑΝΑΤΟ
ΛΗΣΤΔ
ΚΑ

Ἀνδρονίκῳ πρωτοπροέδρῳ, πρωτοβεστιαρίῳ, καὶ δομεστίκῳ τῶν σχολῶν τῆς Ἀνατολῆς τῷ Δούκᾳ

Obverse

The Virgin seated on a high-backed throne, holding Christ before her. Inscriptions: ΘΥ : Μήτηρ Θεοῦ. Along a border of tight dots, inscription.

+ΘΚΕ..ΘΤΣΔΛ,

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλ

Reverse

Inscription of nine lines preceded by an ornament. Border of tight dots.


ΑΝΔΡΟΝΙ
ΚΠΡΤ,ΠΡΟ
ΕΔΡΠΡΤ.
ΕΣΤΙΑΡΙ..
ΔΟΜΕΣΤΙΚ
.ΝΣΧΟΛΝ
ΤΗΣΑΝΑΤΟ
ΛΗΣΤΔ
ΚΑ

Ἀνδρονίκῳ πρωτοπροέδρῳ, πρωτοβεστιαρίῳ, καὶ δομεστίκῳ τῶν σχολῶν τῆς Ἀνατολῆς τῷ Δούκᾳ

Accession number BZS.1958.106.1355
Diameter 28.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 99.4.
Zacos-Veglery, no. 2693c.
Oikonomides, Dated Seals, no. 98.

Translation

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀνδρονίκῳ πρωτοπροέδροῳ, πρωτοβεστιαρίῳ, καὶ δομεστίκῳ τῶν σχολῶν τῆς Ἀνατολῆς τῷ Δούκᾳ.

Theotokos, help your servant Andronikos Doukas protoproedros, protovestiarios, and domestikos of the Schools of the East.

Commentary

Same owner as BZS.1958.106.1144 and BZS.1958.106.2491.

Andronikos Doukas is the son of caesar John Doukas, cousin of Michael VII and father of Eirene, the wife of Alexios I Komnenos. He was appointed domestikos of the Schools of the Orient in ca. 1072 and died as the monk Antonios on 14 October 1077. He is mentioned with all three of the titles that appear on our seals in a Patmos document by which he received in 1073 an imperial donation. See Polemis, Doukai, 55-59; cf. Zacos-Veglery, 1473 and Patmos, II, no. 50.

From an administrative point of view, the term Anatole was used until the 10th century to indicate (a) the territories that had previously belonged to the praefectura praetorio per Orientem that is, essentially, all the themes of Asia Minor together with those of Thrace and Macedonia; or, more realistically, (b) the territories situated to the east of Constantinople, that is, Asia Minor. In the 10th century the army command of the East was separated from that of the West (that is, Europe), Listes, 329, 341-42; cf. Oikonomides, Évolution, 141-42 and AP 35 [1978] 300, 328-29. The seals published here (and some others, such as the one of the stratopedarches of the East: Zacos-Veglery, no. 2780; Lihačev, Molivdovuly, 104, pl. LXIII,9; Seyrig, no. 159; or the hikanatoi of the East: Seyrig, no. 154) show that in the 10th and eleventh centuries the entity called the East comprised only military commands.

It should be noted, however, that in some cases the term Anatole seems to have been used to indicate a strategos of the Anatolikoi (cf. Winkelmann, Ämterstruktur, 78-79); and several civilian officials defined as ton Anatolikon could well wave authority over territories covering the East, well beyond the boundaries of the theme (see DO Seals 3, § 86, nos. 86.9, 86.17, 86.34).

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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)
  • Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
  • A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Seals (Open in Zotero)
  • Patmiakē Vivliothēkē: ētoi neos katalogos tōn cheirographōn kōdikōn tēs Hieras Monēs Hagiou Iōannou tou Theologou Patmou (Open in Zotero)
  • Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles (Open in Zotero)
  • L’évolution de l’organisation administrative de l’empire byzantin au XIe siècle (1025–1118) (Open in Zotero)
  • Molivdovuly grečeskogo Vostoka (Open in Zotero)
  • Byzantinische Rang- und Ämterstruktur im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert: Faktoren und Tendenzen ihrer Entwicklung (Open in Zotero)