Browse Items (81 total)

Constantine VII took the throne at a young age of seven. He spent many years under regency until he was ultimately able to secure his sole place as emperor of the Byzantine Empire in 945 CE. He declared his son, Romanus II, co-emperor soon after.…

Hadrian was known as a level headed and successful emperor, if not a bit reserved. He was very interested in Greek culture to the point that, when he was a young boy, he was called “Graeculus,” or Greekling, by his teachers. This interest in Greek…

These coins, from about the same time but of differing weight and size, both show the typical lion facing a bull. This image was the standard design on the earliest Lydian silver coinage, thought by most scholars to be the oldest silver coinage.…

Henrid VI was the king of the Holy Roman Empire from 1191-1197 CE. He helped suppress rebellion while his father was crusading. He was a successful ruler, marrying the daughter of the king of Sicily, but eventually died in 1197 from malaria.

Not much is know about these coins. They both date to the medieval ages and include a cross so are likely from a Christian dominated area.

Cybele was associated with Magna Mater, a very old goddess of the Roman pantheon. Shrouded in secrecy and mystery, the worship of this foreign goddess came with the Second Punic War. The Romans feared defeat and sought an oracle, which told them to…

Justinian I was commonly known as Justinian the Great. He was the last Roman emperor to speak Latin as a first language and focused on a goal of reuniting the East and West empires. He was an important figure of Late Antiquity and was called by some…

Constantius was the third son of Constantine the Great. He was in control of the eastern Roman empire while his two brothers struggled for the west. He survived after his brothers had been killed and successfully ruled until 361 CE, when he died on…

This coin shows the traditional standard markings of a denarius: Roma on the obverse and the Dioscuri on the reverse. After the next few years, the standard changed to reflect whatever the moneyers cared to feature on their coins.