The Image of the Emperor on Byzantine Coins
July 12, 2026 | Featured
The emperor stood at the centre of Byzantine life: the court, the army, the church, the civil administration, the citizens of Constantinople, the great families, all looked to the emperor for leadership, protection, satisfaction and support. The image of the emperor was also thus the centre of official imperial art. Yet official representations of the emperor do not survive in great quantities. The loss of the great Byzantine palaces and their interior decoration, of much secular-oriented statuary and other art forms, has accounted for this. Yet at least one form of representation survives in great numbers, and indeed was produced in vast numbers, outstripping by several degrees of magnitude every other vehicle for conveying the imperial image. This is, of course, coinage.
From Coins and UK