Constans II Pogonatus (AD 641-668). AV solidus (19mm, 4.29 gm, 7h). NGC Choice VF 4/5 – 2/5,

Description

Constans II Pogonatus (AD 641-668). AV solidus (19mm 4.29 gm 7h). NGC Choice VF 4/5 – 2/5 graffiti clipped. Constantinople 10th officina ca. AD 651-654. d N CONStAN-tINЧS P P AV draped bust of Constans II facing with long beard and mustache wearing crown surmounted by cross globus cruciger in right hand / VICTORIA-AVϚЧ I cross potent with base on three steps CONOB below. Sear 956. 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 50000-60000 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. Hoping to finance the wars against the Arabs Constans stripped many of the buildings and statues of Rome of their precious metal leading to unknown cultural destruction. It was the greatest disaster that had befallen the city since the Gothic War some estimate that the destruction of artifacts by Constans’ looting was greater than in the far more famous Visigoth sack of the city in AD 410. Base metals were not spared the looting – Constans also gutted buildings of their copper and other metals to make weapons. Having decimated the old capital Constans proceeded to implement the same policies in the rest of Byzantine Italy destroying countless treasures. His Italian and Sicilian subjects initially proud that Constans had chosen the West for his capital grew to hate him. He was assassinated while in his bath in Syracuse in AD 668 allegedly struck on the head with a bucket by his chamberlain.