Constans II Pogonatus (AD 641-668). AV solidus (20mm, 4.43 gm, 6h). NGC Choice XF 5/5 - 2/5, graffiti....
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Constans II Pogonatus (AD 641-668). AV solidus (20mm, 4.43 gm, 6h). NGC Choice XF 5/5 - 2/5, graffiti. Constantinople, 2nd officina, dated Indictional Year 5 (AD 646/647). d N CONStAN-tIN?S P P AV, draped bust of Constans II facing, with large head and short beard, wearing chlamys and crown surmounted by cross, globus cruciger in right hand / VICTORIA-AV?? B, cross potent with base on three steps; ? (Indictional Year) in right field, CONOB below. Sear 942. Sporting the longest beard of all Byzantine emperors, Constans II ruled at the twilight of the ancient world and the dawn of the medieval. Under his grandfather Heraclius, Latin was discarded as the official language of the empire in favor of the more prevalent Greek, and the Roman provincia became the Byzantine theme. Constans continued to implement these changes, creating several more themes. With his empire under assault from the Arabs in both Asia Minor and Africa, Constans abandoned the struggle and Constantinople itself, moving his capital to Syracuse, Sicily in AD 663. Constans' brief time in Italy was strange and otherworldly. In AD 663, the emperor visited Rome for twelve days. The Pope received him with honor; Constans was the first emperor to visit Rome in two centuries, as the last Western rulers rarely left Ravenna. Conversely, it was also the final time an emperor set foot in the old capital. Professor Paul Freedman of Yale called the visit "eerie... like a ghost emperor visiting a ghost city." By the AD 660s, Rome was all but deserted. Only several centuries earlier the capital of the most powerful state in the world, the city lay in ruins. From its second century apogee of 1.5 million people, by the time of Constans' visit only 50,000-60,000 remained, concentrated in a few isolated neighborhoods of the once-sprawling metropolis. If the mostly poor inhabitants of Rome living in the once-majestic marble ruins thought an imperial visit would increase their fortunes, they were sorely mistaken. ...
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