Nomos 19

Michael II Comnenus-Ducas, despot of Epiros, 1237-1271. Aspron Trachy (Silver, 29 mm, 3.84 g, 6 h), Arta. IC-XC Christ Pantocrator, bearded, nimbate and with his right hand raised in benediction, seated facing on throne; above throne to left, X above M; to right [lis] above AK. Rev. MHXAHΛ [KΩNCTANTINOC] (sic!). To left, Michael standing facing, crowned, wearing divitision, collar piece adorned with eight jewels and loros, and holding cross-tipped scepter with his right hand; to right St. Constantine standing facing, crowned, wearing divitision, collar piece adorned with nine jewels and loros, [and holding cross-tipped scepter with his left hand]; both holding between them a long staff, topped with a globe on which there is a Latin cross, itself topped with a globe on which there is an even smaller globe-topped cross; at the bottom of the staff, a globe set on three steps; the whole forms what might initially be seen as a patriarchal cross. Bendall 1. Cf. DOC 1 (but in electrum) and SB 2230. Of extreme rarity, unknown with this extraordinary cross on the reverse. Some striking flatness, otherwise, nearly extremely fine.

Michael II Komenos [Angelos]-Doukas, was the son of the first Greek ruler of Epiros, Michael I Ducas (1204-1215), himself the illegitimate son of the Sebastocrator John Doukas. After Michael I's death he was succeeded by his brother Theodore (see the preceding lot), who not only managed to capture the new Latin emperor of Constantinople, Peter of Courtenay, in 1217 (he died in captivity two years later, probably poisoned), but after capturing Thessalonica in 1224, was crowned emperor by the Archbishop of Ochrida in 1227. In 1230 Theodore, who was on the brink of taking Constantinople, made the unfortunate decision to attack the Bulgarians, who, under their Tsar Ivan Asen II, heavily defeated Theodore at Klokotnitsa. Theodore's "empire" then collapsed (he was blinded and remained captive in Bulgaria until 1237 when he returned to Thessalonica; when Thessalonica was incorporated into the Empire of Nicaea 1246 he retired to a castle in western Macedonia, but in 1251 the emperor John Vatatzes took him away to Asia Minor, where he died soon after). In any event Michael II, who had been exiled after his father's death, returned to the Epirote capital of Arta in 1230, along with his wife Theodora Petralipha (she later became on Orthodox saint, St. Theodora of Arta; she came from a Norman-Byzantine family descended from Peter d'Aulps, a Provencal nobleman who had accompanied Robert Guiscard to Kephalonia in 1085; after Guiscard died from a fever in July, Peter then became an officer in the forces of Alexius I). By 1246 he had become the effective ruler of Epirus and much of Thessaly, and in c. 1249/1251 he was given the title of Depot by John Vatatzes. After various vicissitudes Michael II managed to form an alliance against the Nicaeans, marrying his daughter Helena to Manfred of Sicily and another, Anna, to Guillaume de Villehardouin, Prince of Achaia: this alliance collapsed in defeat by the Nicaeans at the battle of Pelagonia in 1259. Finally, in 1264, Michael II came to terms with the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII and died, at long last in peace, in c. 1270/1271.