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Herakleios, Herakleios Constantine, and Heraklonas (638–41)

 
 

Obverse

The Mother of God standing, wearing a chiton and maphorion, and holding Christ before her. A cross potent at left. Wreath border.

Reverse

Three emperors standing (the one at left is on the missing half): in center, Herakleios, and at right, Herakleios Constantine, beardless. Both figures wear a crown with a cross and a chlamys and hold a globus cruciger in the their right hands. Details are unclear. No inscription. Wreath border.

Obverse

The Mother of God standing, wearing a chiton and maphorion, and holding Christ before her. A cross potent at left. Wreath border.

Reverse

Three emperors standing (the one at left is on the missing half): in center, Herakleios, and at right, Herakleios Constantine, beardless. Both figures wear a crown with a cross and a chlamys and hold a globus cruciger in the their right hands. Details are unclear. No inscription. Wreath border.

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.3619
Diameter 27.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 6, no. 17.13.

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

Commentary

The empress Martina’s eldest surviving son, Heraklonas, who was born in Lazica in 625 or 626, was raised to the rank of caesar on 1 January 632 and became an augustus in July of 638.  Early coins depict a diminutive Heraklonas wearing a cap with a cross above his head.  The transition from cap to crown with cross is generally considered as signalling Heraklonas’s rise to augustus.  The increasing size of Heraklonas relative to Herakleios Constantine marks the passage of years.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 6, Emperors, Patriarchs of Constantinople, Addenda (Open in Zotero)