Isidoros? Stratelates and Anthypatos. Approximate date?

[Strategos A]

Looking for some help trying to decipher this seal.  Here's what I feel fairly certain of:
+ςΤΡΑ
ΤΗΛΑΤΗ
SΑΝΘVΠ
ΑΤΩ+

Stratelates and Anthypatos

ΘΕΟ
ΤΟΚ(Ε?)ΒΟ
ΗΘ_ _ _ Δ
ΩΡΩ

Theotokos help...  The letters immediately after theta are a bit hard for me.  I don't have much experience, but from what I have seen, the letter immediately after theta would typically be an Eta.  I can't see any connection though, so it looks like two iotas.  Mostly that would make sense, since the other letters look like ς and another iota.  So, I come up with:

ΗΘΙΙςΙΔ

Isidoros.

Is this what others see?  Does "help" sometimes appear as ΒΟΗΘΙ instead of ΒΟΗΘΗ or would this be a pretty unlikely way of writing it?


Also, would it be possible to interpret what time period this seal would be from from the style?  It's 9.6 gr and 22 mm.  From what I have been reading, Stratelates and Anthypatos could be real offices with duties or just court dignities, depending on the time period, so it would be interesting to know what duties this person would have had, if any.   


Thank you for any help you can provide.  

[Gert]

Yes, you read it correctly. Kudos.

ΒΟΗΘI ICIΔWPW

The correct spelling would be 'boèthei', but on seals we also find boèthè, and derived from that boèthi.

As for the date, I'd say your seal dates to the late 7th to 8th century. The legend is composed in a dative, which is gramatically correct with the verb 'help', but this started only during the late 7th-8th century. Typical 6th/7th century seals have their legends in the genitive - 'Isidorou'.

Stratelates is a dignity, but I think anthypatos in the 8th century still denotes a provincial command. It translates Lat. proconsul.
Regards
Gert

[Strategos A]

Yes, you read it correctly. Kudos.

ΒΟΗΘI ICIΔWPW

The correct spelling would be 'boèthei', but on seals we also find boèthè, and derived from that boèthi.

As for the date, I'd say your seal dates to the late 7th to 8th century. The legend is composed in a dative, which is gramatically correct with the verb 'help', but this started only during the late 7th-8th century. Typical 6th/7th century seals have their legends in the genitive - 'Isidorou'.

Stratelates is a dignity, but I think anthypatos in the 8th century still denotes a provincial command. It translates Lat. proconsul.
Regards
Gert

Gert, thank you so much for the information.  I will have to keep that in mind about the dative vs. genitive cases.  I have barely scratched the surface of Byzantine bureaucracy, so please forgive what may be an obvious question.  If I am understanding you, Isidoros was a governor of an area, but had no command of the local army.  Would stratelates be a title all anthypatoi would carry or would the emperor only grant the extra title as a reward to certain anthypatoi who had served him well?  If only certain anthypatoi got it, would this title have come with extra pay or some other tangible reward, or was the prestige its own reward?

 

[Gert]

Your 8th century anthypatos was not nearly as powerful as a Roman proconsular governor, or even a 6th century anthypatos. By the 8th century, the theme system (google it) was used to govern the Roman/Byzantine empire, and the supreme commander of a provincial 'theme' was called 'strategos'. He had the kind of power that a 6th century 'anthypatos' would have had, combining civil and military command. The anthypatos still had some role in the civil administration of the themes, but by the beginning of the 9th century the title evolved into a court dignity. The office would have been called 'protonotarios' by then.

Yes, court dignities do correlate with offices, so with a promotion to higher office, the raising of the court dignity was simultaneous. This is seen throughout Byzantine history. But there is overlap because the prestige of court rank is inflatory and offices are constantly modified and reinvented. So an anthypatos would be usually a stratelates, or one of the ranks directly above or below. As were other offices: 8th century strategoi are usually patrikios or protospatharios, never stratelates.

Regards
Gert

[Strategos A]

Thank you so much!  I went down the rabbit hole a bit trying to learn about these positions and your explanation makes things a lot more clear. 


On a side note, I found another copy of this seal.  The seller's description identifies this Isidoros as "Metropolitan of Anazarbus" in addition to stratelates and anthypatos.  This seems a bit dubious since the seal does not identify him as such and I haven't been able to find much info on this Metropolitan.  I've ordered a few things from some college libraries, so if I can find any historical references to Isidoros, Metropolitan of Anazarbus also holding the positions of anthypatos and stratelates, I'll report back.

Thanks again

[Gert]

I won't spoil the fun then by giving you my opinion on that attribution!

And speaking of rabbit holes: this is the largest online database with photos: https://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/byzantine-seals#b_start=0
Gert

[Strategos A]

I won't spoil the fun then by giving you my opinion on that attribution!

And speaking of rabbit holes: this is the largest online database with photos: https://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/byzantine-seals#b_start=0
Gert

Ha, spoil away!  In my rabbit hunt, I also ran into this:

Isidoros 3 was bishop of Anazarbos in Cilicia Secunda; in 692 he attended the Quinisext Council at Constantinople, where he signed the canons: Ohme, Bischofsliste, p. 147, no. 25 (= Mansi XI 989) (Ἰσίδωρος ἐλέῳ Θεοῦ ἐπίσκοπος πόλεως Ἀναζαρβῶν τῆς δευτέρας τῶν Κιλίκων ἐπαρχίας). He is probably identical with the owner of a seal dateable to the middle or late seventh century: Zacos and Veglery 2947. The name and title read: Ἰσιδώρου μητροπολίτου Ἀναζάρβου.
http://www.pbe.kcl.ac.uk/data/D41/F68.htm


If we have a seal specifying him as Metropolitan, it seems unlikely that he'd have a separate seal for other duties.  Then, of course, we have the dative/genitive conflict of Isidorou here as opposed to Isidoro on these two seals. 

Am I correct that these seals aren't the same person as the Metropolitan?

[Gert]

There are no flaws in your reasoning. Even apart from the fact that your seal is likely a couple of decades younger, there is absolutely no way that these seals belong to same Isidoros. Yours belongs to a provincial bureaucrat, while the Isidoros you quote was a member of high clergy. Men from separate worlds, which is why you never see clergy carrying 'worldly' titles and offices and vice versa.

Regards
Gert

[Strategos A]

Appreciate the confirmation!  Since the Byzantine world didn't really have a strong conception of separation of church and state, I wasn't sure if a Bishop wouldn't take on administrative duties in the remote borderland areas.