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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
250, Lot: 385. Estimate $100.
Sold for $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Basil II Bulgaroktonos, with Constantine VIII. 976-1025. AR Miliaresion (22mm, 2.46 g, 6h). Constantinople mint. Struck 977-989. Cross crosslet with central X set globus on four steps, between crowned facing busts of Basil and Constantine / Legend in five lines. DOC 17; SB 1810. VF.


Probably the most militant of Byzantine emperors, Basil never married, devoting his entire reign to conducting campaigns against Bulgarians, Fatimids, Georgians and the western principalities. 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 supposedly died of despair when he saw what had been done to his men.