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Demetrios metropolitan of Herakleia (ninth/tenth century)

 
 

Obverse

Busts of two saints: St. Peter (left) holding a cross potent on a long shaft and St. Paul holding book. Along the circumference, circular inscription beginning at six o'clock between a double border of dots.

ΑΓΙΟΙΠΕ..ΕΠ.ΥΛΕΟΗΘΕΙΤ,

Ἅγιοι Πέ[τρ]ε (καὶ) Π[α]ῦλε βοηθεῖτ(ε)

Reverse

Inscription of five lines preceded and followed by decoration. Border of dots.


ΔΗΜΗΤ
ΡΙΜΗΤΡ
ΟΠΟΛΙΤΗΗ
ΡΚΛΕΙΣ


Δημητρίῳ μητροπολίτῃ Ἡρακλείας

Obverse

Busts of two saints: St. Peter (left) holding a cross potent on a long shaft and St. Paul holding book. Along the circumference, circular inscription beginning at six o'clock between a double border of dots.

ΑΓΙΟΙΠΕ..ΕΠ.ΥΛΕΟΗΘΕΙΤ,

Ἅγιοι Πέ[τρ]ε (καὶ) Π[α]ῦλε βοηθεῖτ(ε)

Reverse

Inscription of five lines preceded and followed by decoration. Border of dots.


ΔΗΜΗΤ
ΡΙΜΗΤΡ
ΟΠΟΛΙΤΗΗ
ΡΚΛΕΙΣ


Δημητρίῳ μητροπολίτῃ Ἡρακλείας

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.1306
Diameter 25.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 1, no. 53.5. See also Laurent, Corpus V/1, no. 303.

Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore.

Translation

Ἅγιοι Πέτρε καὶ Παῦλε βοηθεῖτε Δημητρίῳ μητροπολίτῃ Ἡρακλείας.

Saints Peter and Paul, help Demetrios metropolitan of Herakleia.

Commentary

Laurent may well be correct that the archbishop attested here is the Demetrios to whom Arethas (before his elevation to the throne of Kaisareia and therefore before 901) presented an old, but "serviceable) copy of a book written by Emperor Marcus Aurelius (L. G. Westerink, Arethae scripta minora [Leipzig, 1968] 305). Loyal to Patriarch Euthymios, he was removed from his metropolis in June 912 by Patriarch Nicholas I (Grumel, Regestes, nos. 631-32). See Asdracha, Thrace orientale, 269.

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)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
  • Arethae archiepiscopi Caesariensis scripta minora (Open in Zotero)
  • Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople, Vol. 1, Les regestes de 381 à 715 (Open in Zotero)
  • La Thrace Orientale et La Mer Noire: Géographie Ecclésiastique et Prosopographie (VIIIe-XIIe Siècles) (Open in Zotero)
  • Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)