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Phocas solidii - cruder than other solidii of the era?

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Ron C2:
I posited recently in a gallery post (that not many clicked on), that I felt the solidii of Phocas were (on average) cruder than those of Maurice Tiberius before him, or Heraclius that succeeded him.  This is, of course, entirely subjective and only my opinion.

In general, I think many emperors would have seen their best celators working the gold coinage, with lesser artisans producing the more common copper-based coinage of the byzantine period.  Despite this, all early 7th century solidii are crude compared to the coinage of Anastasius, Justin I, and earlier.  In my subjective opinion, the style improves again around the time of Leontios at the very end of the 7th century.

We know that Phocas, when he was emperor, was not well liked in his empire.  His reign marked a low point for his era, and apart from an odd affinity for him in Italy, most subjects would have likely been glad or indifferent when Heraclius ascended. 

So my question is - does anyone think the popularity of an emperor would have influenced how good a job the celators would have done, trying to portray him? 

Here is a link to a typical example of a Phocas solidus from my collection that illustrates what I mean by "crude". In hand, this is a well struck coin with little wear.  But it's not a great example of artistry.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=173531

I also find Phocas' coins to be on the more affordable end of Byzantine gold - perhaps also because the artistry is "meh", and the man himself is generally not well thought of.

What do you think?

Obryzum:
I am not so sure about the theory that the popularity of the emperor would influence the quality of the coinage.  The types were established upon ascension, when nobody knew whether the emperor would turn out to be popular or not.  After Phocas, the next emperor to establish a reign of terror was Justinian II, but the iconography of his coins was quite good.

Perhaps the problem was that Phocas tried a return to portaiture long after the celators had become accustomed to depicting the emperor in a more standardized way.  And frontal portraiture is a difficult task.  I do NOT think the experiment worked well for any of Phocas, Heraclius, Constans II or Constantine IV.  I think they all look a bit cartoonish.  I was not so impressed by the long beard of Constans II.  Or the attempt to return to the 3/4 bust for Constantine IV -- why did they circles for his eyes?  By the time we get to Justinian II they were ready to settle into something that looks like it is supposed to be an icon, rather than a portrait. 

That's my $0.02

Virgil H:
Just as a non-informed aside, I think the portrait is actually attractive. I don't have comparison points but compared to some others in a variety of early medieval coins I have seen, I don't think this one is particularly crude. Again, an uninformed opinion based on looking at the coin image. My impression may also have something to do with how well this one is struck and that details are quite visible.

Virgil

Ron C2:
Thanks for the input Virgil. What I would offer is that while medieval coinage generally does not compare well to late Imperial coinage in terms of artistry, Byzantine gold coinage is probably the high water line for Christian coinage of the era.

There are some really well done Islamic coins at that time, but generally they were text-based coins because of Islam's views on iconography. So there is not much portraiture to directly compare.

Now that said, of Byzantine gold coinage, from an artistry perspective, the 7th century is not a high point for the craft, though it admittedly compares well to anything else being produced at the time, perhaps even by a wide margin.

There are some other pretty bad examples of Byzantine artistry in the period as well. In a few days I'll post my Constants II Semissis, where an attemp was made to return to obverse portraits in profile. Compared to pre-medieval imperial profiles, well, you can be the judge.

Virgil H:
I completely defer to your judgement on this, I always wondered why coinage got so bad artistically after the Roman period. I guess there are plenty of studies on this and it must be part of the general decline in Europe in many areas, of which coinage was just one aspect.

Regards,
Virgil

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