Wroth,
BMC Byzantine I, p. 25:
Photographed from an
electrotype in the BM of the original, which was formerly in the
French Collection. The only known original was found in 1751 at
Caesarea in
Cappadocia. It passed into the
French Collection, but was melted down by the thieves who plundered the coin cabinet in 1831. A mould, fortunately taken from the original before this date, has been preserved in the BM and from this electrotypes have been made for the
French and English
collections. The original weighed 'cinq onces deux gros', equivalent to 36 solidi or half a
Roman pound (
Babelon,
Mélanges, pp. 312 and 321).
Wroth suggests a probable date of before 538 because the
bust type resembles solidi struck up to that date, and a possible connection to the triumph celebrated by Belisarius at
Constantinople for
his conquest of
Africa in 534.