Basil metropolitan of Antioch (of Pisidia) (ninth/tenth century)
Obverse
Blank.
Reverse
Inscription of five lines ending with a leaf decoration, followed by a cross between dots below. Border of dots.
Α..
ΛΕΙΜΗ.
ΡΟΠΟΛΙΤ.
ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕ
ΙΑΣ
Βασιλείῳ μητροπολίτῃ Ἀντιοχείας
Accession number | BZS.1958.106.155 |
---|---|
Diameter | 24.0 mm |
Previous Editions | DO Seals 3, no. 89.1 |
Translation
Βασιλείῳ μητροπολίτῃ Ἀντιοχείας.
Basil, metropolitan of Antioch.
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)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Phrygien und Pisidien (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
Laurent is probably correct that the specimen represents a trial piece for one of the matrices. His identification of the Basil attested on this specimen with the Basil mentioned on a seal of the IFEB Collection (Corpus V/1, no. 539) should be rejected. The specimen edited here predates the latter by at least a half century.
Antioch of Pisidia (today Yalavaç, east of Lake Eğridir) was a metropolis first attested in 381 and mentioned thereafter in all the notitiae episcopatuum. It had twenty-one suffragans between the tenth and thirteenth centuries but had a reputation as a nest of heresies. See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 400; Phrygien und Pisidien, 185-88; ODB I, 113.