Justinian II (685 AD–711 AD) — Byzantine Emperor

The last Heraclian, Justinian II succeeded his father Constantine IV in September 685 as a teenager and held the throne for ten years before the strategos Leontius deposed him in 695, slit his nose to disqualify him from rule under the old Roman convention against mutilated emperors, and exiled him to Cherson on the Crimean coast, hence the Greek epithet Rhinotmetos, "the slit-nosed." The disqualification did not hold. In 705, after a decade in exile, he allied with the Bulgar khan Tervel, returned to Constantinople with a Bulgar army, recovered the throne, and ruled a vengeful second reign until a rebellion in 711 killed him and ended the dynasty. Within the first reign, around 692, the Constantinople mint introduced a solidus that placed a frontal bust of Christ Pantocrator on the obverse and demoted the emperor to the reverse. It is the first explicit Christ-portrait on Byzantine gold and the iconographic moment from which the rest of Byzantine numismatic theology proceeds.

The Christ Pantocrator solidus of c. 692 is the structural moment from which the rest of Byzantine numismatic iconography proceeds: by removing the emperor from the obverse and substituting an explicit Christ portrait, the Constantinople mint of Justinian II's first reign relocated the source of imperial authority from the person of the Augustus to the figure of Christ. It is a theology-of-image revolution preserved in struck gold and never fully reversed, taken up again under the Macedonian dynasty after the iconoclast interruption and carried through to 1453. The paired-reign portrait sequence (clean-shaven first reign, bearded second reign with the beard masking the mutilation, son Tiberius added in the loros) is in parallel one of the cleanest documentary records of an imperial biography ever to survive on coinage: deposition, mutilation, exile, return, and dynastic association are each legible at portrait level on the solidi.

Key Events

September 685 AD Succeeds his father Constantine IV as sole Augustus; the last Heraclian inheritance, taken in his mid-teens

691–692 AD Convenes the Quinisext Council (Council in Trullo) at Constantinople, legislating ecclesiastical discipline for both halves of the late Justinianic reform and prohibiting the symbolic representation of Christ as a lamb in favour of the human figure; the canonical groundwork for the iconographic shift about to register on the gold

c. 692 AD Constantinople introduces the Christ Pantocrator solidus: frontal bust of Christ holding the gospels on the obverse, the emperor relegated to the reverse holding a patriarchal cross on steps. This is the first Byzantine gold to carry an explicit Christ portrait and a structural inversion of the obverse-emperor convention in place since Constantine I

695 AD Deposed in a military coup by the strategos Leontius; nose is slit to disqualify him from the throne under the old Roman maxim that a mutilated body cannot wear the diadem, and exiled to Cherson in the Crimea, the source of the epithet Rhinotmetos

695–704 AD Decade of exile at Cherson under three successor regimes (Leontius, then Tiberius III Apsimar); escapes briefly to the Khazar khaganate, marries the khan's sister Theodora, and survives at least one Byzantine assassination attempt

705 AD Allies with the Bulgar khan Tervel, marches on Constantinople with a Bulgar army, enters the city through an aqueduct conduit, recovers the throne, and executes Leontius and Tiberius III in the Hippodrome

705–711 AD Second reign: solidi resume with a bearded portrait (the beard concealing the mutilation) and his young son Tiberius is associated on the throne and appears alongside him on the standing-figures reverse

4 November 711 AD Killed in a rebellion led by Philippicus Bardanes raised among the Cherson garrison; son Tiberius murdered shortly after, ending the Heraclian line

Coinage

The two reigns separate the coinage into two visually distinct chapters that meet across a sixteen-year exile, and the iconographic reading of each chapter is the readable surface of the biography. The first reign opens in the inherited late-Heraclian solidus vocabulary (beardless frontal bust, chlamys and crown with cross, reverse cross potent on steps), and then, at some point around 692, the Constantinople mint replaces the obverse altogether. The new type carries a frontal bust of Christ Pantocrator, long-haired and bearded, right hand raised in benediction and the gospels held in the left, with the legend IhS CRISTOS REX REGNANTIVM around. The emperor is moved to the reverse, standing in loros holding a patriarchal cross set on three steps, with the legend D IVSTINIANVS SERV CHRISTI ("Justinian, servant of Christ"), a complete inversion of the obverse-emperor convention that had held on Roman and Byzantine gold for nearly four centuries. The Council in Trullo legislation of 692 against the symbolic-lamb representation of Christ is the doctrinal context, and the solidus is the metallurgical receipt. The second reign, after the mutilation and exile, returns to the same Christ obverse and adds an immediately legible portrait detail on the reverse: the emperor is now bearded, the beard covering the lower face where the slit nose would otherwise read, and from about 706 his young son Tiberius is associated on the throne and the two stand side by side holding the cross on steps between them. Bronze folles continued undated through both reigns at Constantinople, Carthage (until the city fell to the Arabs in 698), Ravenna, Rome, Syracuse, and Sardinia, on a smaller and more carelessly struck module than the sixth-century reform follis. The reference framework is Grierson's Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection Vol. II.2 (Heraclius to Theodosius III, 1968) and Sear's Byzantine Coins and Their Values (2nd ed., 1987).

Denominations

Gold Solidus Gold Semissis Gold Tremissis Silver Hexagram Bronze Follis (undated) Bronze Half-Follis

Notable Types

Frontal bust of Christ Pantocrator with gospels, legend IhS CRISTOS REX REGNANTIVM / emperor standing in loros holding patriarchal cross on three steps, legend D IVSTINIANVS SERV CHRISTI (gold solidus, Constantinople, first reign c. 692–695; the inaugural Christ Pantocrator type and the iconographic origin point of every later Byzantine Christ obverse)
Frontal bust of Christ / bearded emperor with associate son Tiberius, both standing facing in loros and holding a cross on steps between them (gold solidus, Constantinople, second reign c. 706–711; the beard concealing the mutilation and the dynastic association made explicit on the metal)
Crowned facing bust holding globus cruciger / large M with mint signature beneath (bronze follis, undated, struck at Constantinople and the western mints through both reigns)

Common Reverses

Emperor standing facing in loros, holding patriarchal cross set on three steps, on the first-reign solidus Justinian and son Tiberius standing facing in loros, jointly holding a long cross on steps between them, on the second-reign solidus and the associated fractional gold Large M flanked by mint signature on the undated bronze follis, the carelessly struck small-module successor to the sixth-century reform piece

Active Mints

Constantinople (CON) Thessalonica (TES) Carthage (KART, lost to the Arabs in 698) Ravenna (RAV) Rome Syracuse (SCL) Sardinia

Collecting Guide

The first job on any Justinian II piece is to decide what the obverse actually carries, because the price spread organises around a single line (Christ or emperor) with everything else subordinate to that one question, and a worn Christ Pantocrator obverse can be mistaken for the more familiar facing-bust type by anyone working at speed. The defence is DOC Vol. II.2 (Grierson 1968) and Sear's Byzantine Coins and Their Values, against which NumisLens carries no per-emperor catalogue. First-reign Christ Pantocrator solidi of Constantinople (c. 692–695) are the iconic Byzantine collectible type and routinely clear $1,500–$5,000 in VF at CNG, Roma, Künker, Heritage, and Leu, with sharp-portrait EF examples climbing into the five figures on the strongest centring. Second-reign Christ-obverse solidi with the bearded portrait and the Justinian-and-Tiberius reverse (c. 706–711) are scarcer for the short six-year window, in the $800–$2,500 VF band and rising on EF examples that preserve the beard detail and the son's portrait cleanly. Pre-Christ first-reign solidi without the Pantocrator obverse sit in a lower band, $500–$1,200 VF. Semisses and tremisses of both reigns are scarcer still and largely sit in a specialist market. Undated bronze folles vary widely with mint and preservation, at $80–$400 in VF and rarely above; Carthage and Sardinia folles carry small specialist premiums for the western-mint provenance and for the 698 cut-off on Carthage output.

Market Overview

The Christ Pantocrator solidus is the single most cross-collected Byzantine gold type, drawing demand from three fields that rarely overlap: Christian-art and iconography specialists who buy it as the first explicit Christ portrait on coinage, Byzantine-history specialists who buy it as the doctrinal twin of the Trullan canons, and biographical-narrative collectors who pursue the matched first-and-second-reign portrait pair as a documentary record of the deposition-and-return. Provenance from named twentieth-century Byzantine cabinets (Bertelè, Hunt, Bendall, Sigler) registers in hammer prices on the Pantocrator gold in particular, and a documented DOC pedigree on a first-reign Christ solidus is worth examining before any bid.

Justinian II

Key Events

Coinage

Collecting Guide

Market Overview

Related Resources

Further Reading