Byzantine Coins

"Every coin is a cultural microcosm in which an epoch, a culture is condensed and expressed in an exemplary manner. Anyone who collects old coins is immersed in the immense diversity of the past. Coins are an excellent means of bringing past epochs and cultures to life. (Andreas Urs Sommer, philosopher and numismatist, 2010)
Historically, the Byzantine period represents an extensive melting pot of peoples and religions. The gold and purple, the power and splendour of Byzantium fascinated all the people of the Middle Ages in both the West and the East.
As a major centre of Christianity and the last refuge of ancient culture, Byzantium was able to unite the philosophy of Plato with the faith of the Church Fathers.
The Byzantine Empire is thus a unique link in European civilisation and the transmitter of the Greek-Latin heritage that it first handed down to the Arab-Muslim world.
Thanks to John Skylitzes (Byzantine historian of the 11th century), we have extensive historical knowledge about the emperors of Byzantium. His detailed work (The Synopsis of Histories) remains one of the most important sources for the period under discussion on the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from 811 to 1057.
Special currency reforms took place under Emperor Constantinus I in 309 AD, Emperor Anastasius in 498 and Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas (963 - 969).
The Byzantine currency consisted essentially of two types of coins: the golden solidus and a variety of bronze coins.
The solidus represented the undisputed trade coin throughout Europe for about 900 years (!). Byzantine gold coins were popular with all the tribes of the migration and the commonwealths of the early Middle Ages and were imitated from Spain to India, from North Africa to Sweden (especially the tremisses).
The coinage is dominated by depictions of the respective emperors, their robes and insignia. The reverse depicts either the "Christianised" Victoria, the cross of the crutch, or a Christogram.
Byz. art found its highest creative expression in the sacred pictures. Art found its highest expression in sacred images. This also applies to Byz. Coinage. Under Justinian II (685 - 695), the portrait of Christ first appeared on coins in order to displace the depiction of the emperor from the obverse to the reverse after the iconoclasm of 843. Under Leo VI. (886 - 912) the depiction of the Virgin Mary was added. Later, a number of saints are also "found" on the coins.