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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 μητροπολίτ Ἀντιοχείας

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 μητροπολίτ Ἀντιοχείας

Accession number BZS.1958.106.155
Diameter 24.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 89.1
Laurent, Corpus V/1, no. 540.

Translation

Βασιλείῳ μητροπολίτῃ Ἀντιοχείας.

Basil, metropolitan of Antioch.

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.

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)