26 Centuries of Gold
829-842 Theophilus

Owner Comments:

This coin was previously sold at a Münzen & Medaillen GmbH auction in Switzerland in 1953. According to the 1953 auction catalog, this was part of the "R.P." collection of Roman and Byzantine coins.

Theophilos (Greek: Θεόφιλος; sometimes Latinized or Anglicized as Theophilus; 800-805 – 20 January 842 AD) was the Byzantine Emperor from 829 until his death in 842. He was the second emperor of the Amorian dynasty and the last emperor to support iconoclasm. Iconoclasm was the movement to prohibit pictures of the saints and Jesus in religious services, and sometimes outright.

Theophilos personally led the armies in his lifelong war against the Arabs, beginning in 831. The Arabs got into Sicily and set up an Emirate, and were always pushing against him in the East.

Theophilos was succeeded by his son Michael, who would come to be known (probably unfairly) as Michael the Drunkard. Michael befriended an older wrestler, Basil the Macedonian, who would later kill Michael and take over as Emperor. Basil went on to be succeeded by a line of decent-to-good emperors known as the Macedonian dynasty.