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"Foreigners" or Non-Greeks owning Byzantine seals

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Gert:
As shown above (and below, as I intend to post more examples), the most obvious clue that we are dealing with 'foreigners' is their non-Greek name. Sometimes these non-Greeks would build a new existance and persue a career in the Byzantine empire and don't return to their home country. The family names that start to appear from the 10th century onward on seals reflect some of these family histories. One famous general during the reign of John Tzimiskes, end 10th century was named Leon Sarakenopoulos. Evidently, the progenitor of his family was a muslim (a "Sarakenos") who had migrated to Byzantium and converted.

Leon Sarakenopoulos, imperial protospatharios and strategos of Thrace and Ioannopolis. Byzantine lead seal (28 mm, 10.67 gram) c. 975-986
+ΛEO | R’A’CΠAΘ, | S CTPAT|HΓW in four lines
+ΘPA|KIC S IANU|ΠOΛEOC O | CAPAKIN|OΠUΛ’ in five lines
Jordanov, Corpus II 630 (type C); good VF

Leon Sarakenopoulos was a general during the reigns of John I Tzimiskes and Basil II. He first appears as strategos of Dristra, at the end of the Rus’-Byzantine war of AD 970-971. In the early 970s he became strategos of Preslav, which was renamed Ioannopolis in honor of the emperor. Around 975 he was given the joint command of Thrace and Ioannopolis, possibly in order to fight the revolt of the Bulgarian Cometopuli dynasty. Even though the compaign was not a success and Leon was recalled to the Capital, where he was promoted to patrikios, komes of the stable and protostrator.

Gert:
The family Phrangopoulos had a western founder (or, of course, founders, plural. We do not know if all the known Phrangopouloi belong to same family - there may have been multiple families named Phrangopoulos tracing their descent to different Franks).

The seal below is one of my favorite seals. It shows a wonderful image of the Mother of God as "Hope of the hopeless" and it has an interesting metric legend that translates "Your Nikolaos from the family of the Phrangopoloi, protonobellisimohypertatos, shows you, husbandless mother, as the seal of his writings." It dates from the later 12th century and the lengthy court title shows that there is some inflation of the ranks going on at this time.

There are many other family names to be encountered on seals, and in other sources, that reflect a non-Greek origin: Iberopoulos, Longibardopoulos, Rousopoulos, Serbopoulos to name a few.

Gert:
Neboulos (Slav/Proto-Bulgarian). In the aftermath of Justinian II’s military compaign in the Balkans, in 688/689, the emperor deported large Slavic populations from their homes and settled them in the Opsikion theme in Asia Minor. A short time later, an army was raised from them, and as their commander (archon), a man named Neboulos was appointed. As sigillographic evidence suggests, he already had an impressive career as an officer of the imperial guard. In this capacity, he would have had close proximity to the emperor and this may explain why Neboulos was chosen to command the Slavic auxiliary troops. In 692/93, the Slavic army was deployed in a major campaign against the Umayyads, under the supreme command of the strategos of Anatolikon, the later emperor Leontios. During the battle of Sebastopolis, the Byzantines initially secured the upper hand, but the battle was lost when Neboulos, with his men, deserted and joined the Arabs, allegedly having been bribed by the Arab general. Justinian took bloody revenge on the remaining Slavs of Opsikion, killing their leaders and selling many of them into slavery. Neboulos and his men were settled in Syria by the Arabs.

There is a good chance that this seal (and the parallel found in Kibyra) belonged to this Neboulos. At the least, it belongs to another Slavic or proto-Bulgarian official in Byzantine service who bore the same name.

Neboulos. Byzantine lead seal (20mm, 5.53 gram) 6th-7th century
Bust of the Mother of God facing, nimbate, holding infant Christ
Cruciform monogram NEBOVΛOV
Good VF. A parallel example, but with a differently designed monogram was published by Demirer, Ünal & Elam, Nilgun. (2018). Lead Seals of the Kibyra Excavations. Adalya. 21. 245-276, no. 11. A gold ring in the Virginia museum has another, also differently designed, monogram that can be solved Νεβούλου: Virginia Museum 66.15.4. Its reading was corrected and attributed to the historical Neboulos by Werner Seibt, Neue Aspekte der Slawenpolitik Justinians II. Zur Person des Nebulos und der Problematik der Andrapoda-Siegel: Vizantijskij Vremennik 55/2 (1998) 126-132. A seal that appeared in Gorny & Mosch 156, lot 2527 has the same monogram as the gold ring and bears the office of protoskribon on the reverse. Another seal type, in the Numismatic Museum of Athens, has the same monogram on its obverse, but with the office of skribon in a monogram on the reverse (quoted by Seibt, p. 129 and photo in SBS 6, p. 28).

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