The Wonderful World of Ancient Coin Collecting
Coinage of the Roman Empire


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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Coin Description:
Grade: NGC VF Strike: 4/5 Surface: 4/5
Owner: RAM-VT
 
Set Category: Ancients
Set Name: The Wonderful World of Ancient Coin Collecting
Slot Name: Coinage of the Roman Empire
Research: Currently not available

Owner's Description

Byzantine Empire Leo VI; AD 886-912 AE Follis Grade: VF: Strike 4/5: Surface 4/5 Obv.: Facing bust Rev.: Four-line inscription Leo VI, surnamed the Wise or the Philosopher was Byzantine emperor from 886 to 912. The second ruler of the Macedonian dynasty (although his parentage is unclear), he was very well-read, leading to his surname. During his reign, the renaissance of letters begun by his predecessor Basil I continued, but the Empire also saw several military defeats in the Balkans against Bulgaria and against the Arabs in Sicily and the Aegean. Leo VI's effots in Foreign policy whether they been negoiations or war were mixed. Lets just say he won some and he lost some. Possibly the most notable event during Leo VI’s reign was the major scandal caused by his numerous marriages (or the Moechian Controversy) which failed to produce a legitimate heir to the throne. His first wife Theophano, whom Basil had forced him to marry on account of her family connections to the Martinakioi, and whom Leo hated, died in 897, and Leo married Zoe Zaoutzaina, the daughter of his adviser Stylianos Zaoutzes, though she died as well in 899. Upon this marriage Leo created the title of basileopator ("father of the emperor") for his father-in-law. After Zoe's death a third marriage was technically illegal, but he married again, only to have his third wife Eudokia Baïana die in 901. Instead of marrying a fourth time, which would have been an even greater sin than a third marriage (according to the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos) Leo took as mistress Zoe Karbonopsina. He married her only after she had given birth to a son in 905, but incurred the opposition of the patriarch. Replacing Nicholas Mystikos with Euthymios, Leo got his marriage recognized by the church (albeit with a long penance attached, and with an assurance that Leo would outlaw all future fourth marriages) but opened up a conflict (the so-called "Moechian Controversy" from the Greek moichos, "adulterer") within it and allowed new grounds for papal intervention into Byzantine affairs when he sought and obtained papal consent. My cost was $26

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