Romanus I (920 AD–944 AD) — Byzantine Emperor

Romanos Lekapenos was an Armenian peasant's son from Lakape in the theme of Charsianon who rose through the Byzantine fleet, made drungarios of the imperial navy under Leo VI, and used the political vacuum left by Alexander's death in 913 and the catastrophic Bulgar wars under Symeon to manoeuvre himself into the regency household of the boy-emperor Constantine VII. By April 919 he had married his daughter Helena to Constantine, taken the unprecedented title basileopator, and within twelve months had himself crowned co-emperor (December 920) and senior augustus (December 921), reducing the legitimate Macedonian heir to a junior signature on his own throne. He held that arrangement for twenty-four years, presiding over the 927 peace with Bulgaria, the eastern campaigns of his Armenian general John Kourkouas — which recovered Melitene in 934 and culminated in the entry into Edessa and the transfer of the Mandylion to Constantinople in August 944 — and was deposed in December of that same year by his own sons Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos in a palace coup, tonsured as a monk, and exiled to the island of Prote, where he died in 948.

Two readings carry weight outside the Macedonian-period specialist circle. The first is that the Romanus I solidi, taken as a chronological sequence rather than as individual types, are one of the cleanest surviving records of family-arrangement engineering in the medieval Mediterranean — the visible substitution of Christopher Lekapenos on the 921–931 issues for Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos on the 931–944 issues, and the corresponding silent demotion of Constantine VII from the position the Macedonian birth-right should have given him, is a documentary trace of usurpation-by-degrees that the narrative sources in Theophanes Continuatus and Skylitzes only partially recover. The second is the chronological-anchor value of the late 944 issues: the August 944 transfer of the Mandylion to Constantinople and the December 944 deposition of Romanus fall in the same calendar season, and the gold struck in those final months stands as the metal witness to the Byzantine empire briefly running an extended eastern frontier and a Lekapenid succession arrangement simultaneously — a configuration that collapsed within weeks of being struck.

Key Events

April 919 AD Marries his daughter Helena Lekapene to the thirteen-year-old Constantine VII and takes the title basileopator, displacing the regency of the empress-mother Zoe Karbonopsina without formally claiming the purple

17 December 920 AD Crowned co-emperor by Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos in Hagia Sophia, with Constantine VII demoted to nominal junior position; the act is the only successful regent-to-emperor transition of the Macedonian century

20 May 921 AD Elevates his eldest son Christopher Lekapenos to co-emperor and is himself acclaimed senior augustus, opening the dynastic-portrait coinage that documents the Lekapenid family arrangement in metal

October 927 AD Peace concluded with Bulgaria under Symeon's son Peter, sealed by the marriage of Maria Lekapene (Romanus's granddaughter) to the Bulgarian tsar — Symeon had died unexpectedly in May, removing the Balkan pressure that had defined the previous fifteen years

August 931 AD Christopher Lekapenos, the senior Lekapenid son and co-emperor of ten years' standing, dies; Romanus is left with the younger sons Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos as junior co-emperors, and the dynastic portrait on the gold is re-engraved to reflect the new configuration

19 May 934 AD John Kourkouas, domestic of the schools and the architect of the eastern reconquest, takes Melitene from the Hamdanids — the first major Byzantine territorial recovery in the Mesopotamian frontier since the seventh century

15 August 944 AD Entry of the Mandylion (the Image of Edessa) into Constantinople under Kourkouas's negotiated terms, four months before Romanus's deposition; the relic is installed in the Pharos chapel of the Great Palace

16 December 944 AD Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos arrest their father in a palace coup, tonsure him, and exile him to the monastery on the island of Prote; the legitimate Macedonian heir Constantine VII recovers sole rule six weeks later by deposing his Lekapenid brothers-in-law in turn

15 June 948 AD Dies in monastic exile on Prote

Coinage

The gold of Romanus I reads as a twenty-four-year ledger of Lekapenid succession politics, and the issues fall into two phases divided by the death of Christopher Lekapenos in August 931. The first phase — Romanus I + Christopher solidi struck from late 921 through 931 — shows the two senior Lekapenids standing facing on the reverse, both crowned and holding a long patriarchal cross between them, with Romanus on the left in the position of seniority and Christopher on the right; Constantine VII, the legitimate Macedonian, is on these issues either absent entirely or relegated to the rim legend. The second phase, struck from 931 through the December 944 deposition, replaces the two-figure reverse with a three- or four-figure standing arrangement adding Stephen Lekapenos and Constantine Lekapenos in the positions Christopher had previously occupied — the visible re-engineering of the family arrangement after the eldest son's death, and Romanus's attempt to lock in a Lekapenid succession that would survive him. The obverse across both phases keeps the canonical Christ enthroned facing, holding the Gospels and raising the right hand in benediction, with the Greek legend +IhSXSREX REGNANTIVM ("Jesus Christ, King of Kings"). The silver miliaresion runs parallel to the gold but carries no portrait — only the cross potent on three steps over the inscribed names of the reigning emperors, and the changing roster of names on the miliaresion inscription between 921 and 944 is itself a record of who was on the throne in any given year. Constantinople produces the overwhelming majority of the silver and gold; an occasional bronze follis is signed Cherson. The reference framework is Bellinger and Grierson's Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection Vol. III.2 (Leo III to Nicephorus III, 717–1081), with Sear's Byzantine Coins and Their Values (2nd ed., 1987) as the working pricing reference.

Denominations

Gold Solidus Gold Semissis Gold Tremissis Silver Miliaresion Bronze Follis

Notable Types

Christ enthroned facing, holding the Gospels / Romanus I and Christopher Lekapenos standing facing, both crowned, holding a long patriarchal cross between them, with Romanus on the left (gold solidus, Constantinople, struck c. 921–931 — the first-phase Lekapenid dynastic issue and the densest surviving group)
Christ enthroned facing / Romanus I, Constantine VII, Stephen Lekapenos and Constantine Lekapenos arranged standing, with Romanus central and senior (gold solidus, Constantinople, struck c. 931–944 — the second-phase issue documenting the re-engineering of the Lekapenid arrangement after Christopher's death)
Crowned bust of Romanus facing on a small module / cross potent on three steps over a multi-line Greek inscription naming the reigning emperors of the year (silver miliaresion, Constantinople — the inscription is the diagnostic and changes across the reign)

Common Reverses

Two-figure standing dynastic portrait, Romanus I and Christopher Lekapenos with a long patriarchal cross between them, on the first-phase solidus (921–931) Multi-figure standing dynastic portrait, Romanus I central with three junior emperors flanking, on the second-phase solidus (931–944) Cross potent on three steps over a multi-line Greek inscription naming the reigning Lekapenid arrangement of the year, on the silver miliaresion

Active Mints

Constantinople (CON) Cherson (occasional bronze)

Collecting Guide

The dynastic-portrait phase is the most informative axis for Romanus I gold, and a serious buyer fixes the phase first and the grade second, working from DOC Vol. III.2 (Grierson) and Sear: first-phase Romanus I + Christopher solidi (c. 921–931) and second-phase Romanus I + three sons solidi (c. 931–944) trade in distinct markets, and the reverse configuration is more diagnostic of date and price than the obverse Christ-enthroned type, which runs unchanged through both phases. Common Constantinople solidi of either phase sit in the $400–$1,000 band in VF at CNG, Roma, Künker, Heritage, and Leu, with the first-phase Romanus + Christopher issues carrying a modest premium when Christopher's name is legible in the reverse legend. Silver miliaresia run at $200–$500 in VF; the inscription naming the year's Lekapenid arrangement is the diagnostic. The Cherson bronze is a specialist surface and rarely well-preserved.

Market Overview

Romanus I sits in a deep specialist segment of the Byzantine market. The volume is steady — Macedonian-dynasty gold clears the major sales every month at Roma, CNG, and Künker — and demand pulls from two non-overlapping fields: Byzantine completionists working through the Macedonian sequence, and medieval-Armenian-history collectors who attach the Lakape origin and the Kourkouas eastern campaigns to a broader Armenian-Byzantine collecting interest. The portrait-configuration variation across the twenty-four-year reign supports a sub-market for specialists who collect the gold as a sequence rather than as single types, and well-attributed first-phase Romanus + Christopher solidi tend to clear at the upper end of the common-issue range.

Romanus I

Key Events

Coinage

Collecting Guide

Market Overview

Related Resources

Further Reading