Constans II

Constans — born Herakleios in November 630, grandson of the emperor Heraclius and son of Constantine III — was elevated by the Senate and the army in September 641 at the age of eleven, after the brief co-rule of his uncle Heraklonas collapsed in a palace coup orchestrated by the general Valentinus. He inherited a state in retreat: Alexandria had fallen to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs in 642, Cyprus and Rhodes were under sustained Arab naval raid by the mid-650s, and the Roman fleet was destroyed at the Battle of the Masts off the Lycian coast in 655 under the future caliph Muʿāwiya. Two acts of his reign register heavily in the numismatic record. The first is the bronze reform of around 659: after a hundred and twenty years of Justinianic regnal-year-dated folles, Constans II abandons the year-tag in the exergue and issues a smaller-portrait, undated M-follis — the cleanest single-step break in Byzantine bronze iconography of the seventh century. The second is geographic: in 663 he moved the imperial residence to Syracuse in Sicily, where the mint signed SCL began striking gold and bronze in his name; he is the only Byzantine emperor to govern from a western capital, and he was assassinated there on 15 September 668 in his bath by his chamberlain Andreas, who reportedly struck him with a vessel of soap (the bath-house κάδος in Theophanes's account).

Two threads of the reign carry weight beyond Constans's political arc. The c. 659 bronze reform is the largest single-step iconographic break in Byzantine bronze of the seventh century: after a hundred and twenty years of Justinianic year-tagged folles, the empire issues an undated, smaller-portrait bronze for the first time since 538 — a documentary record of a deliberate fiscal-administrative re-set under the pressure of the Arab wars. The Syracuse mint output of 663–668, which signs SCL on solidi and folles struck during the emperor's physical residence in Sicily, is one of the most concrete numismatic traces of imperial geographic decision-making in the entire period: a court literally striking gold in a different city, on a different module, while Constantinople continues its own parallel output.

Key Events

Coinage

Constans II's coinage falls into two distinct phases that pivot on the bronze reform of about 659. Before the reform, the folles continue the Justinianic template — a large M denomination mark with regnal year in the exergue (ANNO I through roughly ANNO XVIII) and a frontal imperial bust on the obverse — but already shift through three obverse formulae as the dynasty grows: the sole bust of the early regency years (641–c. 651), the paired bust with his son Constantine IV from his association in 654, and the four-figure dynastic group adding Heraclius and Tiberius from about 659 onward, mirroring the multi-figure gold solidi. After the reform, the bronze loses its exergual year entirely and the imperial portrait shrinks; the post-reform folles are smaller-module, undated, and frequently overstruck on earlier Heraclian flans, which makes the chronology specialist work rather than legend-reading. The gold sits on a separate track. The Carthage mint continues to issue solidi through the political collapse of Roman North Africa, with the Constantinopolitan multi-figure dynastic compositions reproduced in indiction-dated North African style; from 663 the Syracuse mint adds its own gold output (the SCL globular flans are diagnostic to specialists), the only Byzantine western-capital gold of the seventh century. The silver hexagram, introduced by Heraclius in 615, continues with the Deus adiuta Romanis reverse, though at substantially reduced output relative to his grandfather's reign. The reference framework is Grierson's Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection Vol. II.2 — Phocas to Theodosius III, 602–717 (1968) and Sear's Byzantine Coins and Their Values (2nd ed., 1987), Sear 936–1138 for the reign.

Collecting Guide

The c. 659 bronze reform is the single date that organises Constans II material across every metal — pre-reform and post-reform pieces price differently, and the cut tracks more cleanly than mint or grade does. Authority on which side of the line any given coin sits is DOC Vol. II.2 (Grierson 1968) and Sear's Byzantine Coins and Their Values; NumisLens carries no per-emperor catalogue for the seventh-century Heraclian sequence. Common Constantinopolitan solidi of the early sole-bust years sit at $400–$900 in VF and $1,000–$1,800 in choice EF at CNG, Roma, Künker, and Leu, with the multi-figure dynastic compositions of 659 onward — Constans with Constantine IV, Heraclius, and Tiberius — carrying a modest specialist premium at $600–$1,500. Syracuse-mint solidi of 663–668 (SCL) sit in their own segment at $500–$1,500 for ordinary examples and well past that for the better-style flans. Post-reform undated bronze folles are widely available at $40–$150; the pre-reform dated folles tend to grade poorly (the planchet quality of the 640s is notoriously rough) but specific years are documentary and worth picking. Carthage gold of the reign is scarcer than the Constantinople output and runs at a $1,500–$3,500 specialist premium.

Market Overview

Constans II material moves at steady volume on the major Byzantine sales, weighted toward Constantinople bronze and Constantinople gold, with the Syracuse-mint output of 663–668 attracting cross-collector interest from Italian-numismatics and South-Italian specialists who collect the western-capital phase as a category of its own. Provincial-mint folles — Carthage, Ravenna, Rome — supply is deep enough that grade rather than rarity drives pricing on the bronze. Carthage gold and Syracuse gold both clear durable premiums over the Constantinople equivalents. The reform-pivot folles (the first undated post-659 issue and the last dated pre-659 issue) are a specialist sub-market that has grown as the chronology has been refined in the SBCV third-edition supplements and the secondary literature.

Related Resources

Further Reading

• Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Vol. II.2 — Phocas to Theodosius III (602–717), Philip Grierson
• Byzantine Coins and Their Values (2nd edition), David R. Sear
• Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture, John F. Haldon