Nomos 2

Tiberius Petasius, usurper, 728 or 730/731. Solidus (Gold, 4.03 g, 6 h), Area of Latium or Tuscany, Blera (in Latium, near Rome) or, perhaps more likely, Naples. TIUERIUS MULTUS A Facing bust of Tiberius, wearing chlamys and a diadem with cross over a circlet, holding globus cruciger in his left hand and akakia in his right. Rev. VICTOR.IVTGTA Cross potent on base and two steps. F. Füeg, “Byzanz: Zu Prägungen aus dem 8. bis 11. Jahrhundert, Teil 1,” SM 196, 1999, 73, A (this piece cited). Unique and of the greatest historical importance. Minor marks and some minor striking flatness, otherwise. About extremely fine.

Ex Stack’s, 12 January 2009, 3179 and Vecchi 5, 5 March 1997, 1183.

This unique coin illuminates one of the murkiest chapters of Italy’s Byzantine history. Tiberius Petasius (his epithet comes from the sun hat - petasos - he liked to wear) was a Byzantine army officer who, due to the decision by Leo III to ban icons in 727, decided to revolt in Italy. He lasted for a very short while before being captured and executed in Monterano by the Byzantine Eutychius, the last Exarch of Ravenna (728-752). His head was sent to Leo III as a present. The style of this coin is closest to that found on coins struck in Beneventum by the Lombard princes of that city; the possibility that this was struck in nearby Naples is not unlikely.