Nomos 24

BYZANTINE SEALS. Niketas Anzas, patrikios and dikaspolos of the theme of Boleron, circa 2nd half of the 12th century. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 26 mm, 18.56 g, 12 h), Didymoteichon?. MHP - ΘY Nimbate and draped half length bust of the Virgin Mary, facing slightly to right, presenting the youthful Christ on her left, nimbate, holding an akakia and rising his right hand in benediction. Rev. ΦΡΟΥΡ, / ΤΟΝ ΑΝΖΑΝ ΠPI NIKHTA / TON TOY ΘΕΜΑ/TOC BOΛΕΡ, / ΔΙΚΑCΠO/ΛΟΝ = <Mother of God>, guard Niketas Anzas, patrikios and dikaspolos of the Boleron theme in seven lines within a border of dots. Apparently unpublished and unknown, but cf. Nesbitt-Seibt, Anzas 18.13 a-c for seals of Niketas Anzas as Chartoularios of the West. A beautiful and very unusual depiction of the Virgin Mary with the young, rather than the infant, Jesus by her side. A well-made seal of great historical interest. Good very fine.

The title dikaspolos is a poetic paraphrase of the term krites = judge. This seal of Niketas Anzas, is lacking from Nesbitt and Seibt's article on the members of the Anzas family, which appeared in DO Papers 67, in 2013. According to that study, the earliest known family member was a certain Niketas who was datable to the first half of the 11th century. Of course, that Niketas could not be the same person as the owner of this seal, but it does show how names were repeated within aristocratic families. Many of the members of the Anzas family held administrative offices in the Themes of Thrace and Macedonia, and this presumably indicates the family's place of origin, in present-day northern and northeastern Greece. A distant offspring of the Anzas family might be Paraskevas Antzas, a professional Greek soccer player, born in Drama in western Macedon, though it is more likely that he is descended from a member of the 2nd Anzac Corps who served in Greece in 1941.