Niketas "Neos" Xylinites, sebastophoros and strategos of Samos (eleventh century)
Obverse
The Virgin standing on a suppedion, raising her hands up to her right, where traces of the hand of God are visible. Sigla: ̅ΘΥ̅: Μήτηρ Θεοῦ. Border of dots.
Obverse
The Virgin standing on a suppedion, raising her hands up to her right, where traces of the hand of God are visible. Sigla: ̅ΘΥ̅: Μήτηρ Θεοῦ. Border of dots.
Reverse
Inscription of eight lines preceded by an ornament. Border of dots.
ΣΦΡΓ
ΝΙΚΗΤ
ΣΕΣΤ,ΦΟΡ
ΠΕΛΣΟΥ
ΣΤΡΤΗΓΟΥ
ΤΟΥΝΕΟΥ
ΞΥΛΙΝΙ
Τ,
Σφραγὶς Νικήτα σεβαστοφόρου πέλω Σάμου στρατηγοῦ τοῦ Νέου Ξυλινίτου
Accession number | BZS.1958.106.5516 |
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Diameter | 30.0 mm; field: 27.0 mm |
Previous Editions | DO Seals 2, no. 44.8. |
Translation
Σφραγὶς Νικήτα σεβαστοφόρου πέλω Σάμου στρατηγοῦ τοῦ Νέου Ξυλινίτου.
I am the seal of Niketas Xylinites the younger, sebastophoros and strategos of Samos.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 2: South of the Balkans, the Islands, South of Asia Minor (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Titres et fonctions de l’Empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum (Open in Zotero)
- Storia della pittura bizantina (Open in Zotero)
- Samos in frühchristlicher und byzantinischer Zeit (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
- Βυζαντιακὰ μολυβδόβουλλα τοῦ ἐν ἈΘήναις Ἐθνικοῦ Νομισματικοῦ Μουσείου (Open in Zotero)
- De Thematibus (Open in Zotero)
- Monumenta Latrensia Hagiographica (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 2 (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Hierarchia Ecclesiastica Orientalis: Series episcoporum ecclesiarum christianarum orientalium (Open in Zotero)
- Les îles de l’empire byzantin: VIIIe-XIIe siècles (Open in Zotero)
- Corpus der byzantinischen Siegel mit metrischen Legenden, Vol. 2, Siegellegenden von Ny bis inklusive Sphragis (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
Two twelve-syllable verses. The name Niketas Xylinites is not recorded in Guilland's list of "sebastophoroi" published in REB 21 (1963) 199 ff (= Guilland, Titres, XVI). He belonged to the immediate entourage of Empress Theodora (cf. DO Seals 2, no. 44.9).
The adjective τοῦ νέου accommodates the metrics but has to be somehow interpreted. When used with emperors, the adjective ὁ νέος usually indicates a second person with the same name and is usually understood as "the second"; compare, for example, Ῥωμανὸς ὁ Νέος concerning Romanos II (Skylitzes, 248) or Βασίλειος ὁ Νέος in the Marciana Psalter concerning Basil II (V. Lazarev, Storia della pittura bizantina [Torino, 1967], pl. 130). In the present case we have to imagine that another Niketas Xylinites was previously at the service of the palace, and then came the owner of our seal who, in order to distinguish himself, added to his name the adjective "the new one." This is interesting because it shows that people of the same family succeeded each other in the same service, and it says something about the quasi-dynastic concept of the family in 11th century Byzantium.