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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
172, Lot: 342. Estimate $200.
Sold for $725. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Basil II Bulgaroktonos, with Constantine VIII. 976-1025. AV Histamenon Nomisma (27mm, 4.33 g, 6h). Constantinople mint. Struck 1005-1025. Facing bust of Christ, nimbate, holding Gospels; two crescents in upper quarters of nimbus / Crowned facing busts of Basil, wearing loros, and Constantine, wearing chlamys, holding plain cross between them. DOC III 6; SB 1800. VF, a crease.


From The John A. Seeger Collection.

Probably the most militant of Byzantine emperors, Basil never married, devoting his entire reign to conducting campaigns against Bulgarians, Fatimids, Georgians and the western principalites. At the battle of Kleidon in 1014 he acquired his nickname Bulgar-Slayer (Bulgaroktonos) when he captured and blinded 14,000 Bulgarians. The Bulgarian tsar Samuel died of despair when he saw what had been done to his men.