Alexius III Angelus BYZANTINE Coin CHRIST Saint Constantin I the Great i36148

Description: Item: i36148 Authentic Ancient Coin of: Byzantine - Alexius III Angelus - Emperor: 8 April 1195 - 17 July 1203 A.D. Billon Aspron Trachy 24mm (2.21 grams) Constantinople mint 1195-1203 A.D. Reference: Sear 2011 Bust of Christ facing, beardless, wearing nimbus crown, pallium and colobium, and raising right hand in benediction; in left scroll. Alexius on left and St. Constantine, bearded on right both standing facing, each wears crown, divitision and lorosand holds labarum (emperor in right hand, saint in left). Constantine. Saint - I the Great Constantine Ruling dynasties often exploit pomp and ceremony with the use of regalia : crowns , robes , orb (globe) and scepters You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity. Jesus of Nazareth (c. 5 BC/BCE – c. 30 AD/CE), also referred to as Jesus Christ or simply Jesus, is the central figure of Christianity. Most Christian denominations venerate him as God the Son incarnated and believe that he rose from the dead after being crucified . The principal sources of information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels, and most critical scholars find them, at least the Synoptic Gospels, useful for reconstructing Jesus’ life and teachings. Some scholars believe apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel according to the Hebrews are also relevant . Most critical historians agree that Jesus was a Jew who was regarded as a teacher and healer , that he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect Judaea, Pontius Pilate, on the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire . Critical Biblical scholars and historians have offered competing descriptions of Jesus as a self-described Messiah, as the leader of an apocalyptic movement, as an itinerant sage, as a charismatic healer, and as the founder of an independent religious movement. Most contemporary scholars of the Historical Jesus consider him to have been an independent, charismatic founder of a Jewish restoration movement, anticipating an imminent apocalypse. Other prominent scholars, however, contend that Jesus' "Kingdom of God" meant radical personal and social transformation instead of a future apocalypse. Christians traditionally believe that Jesus was born of a virgin :529–32 performed miracles ,:358–59 founded the Church , rose from the dead , and ascended into heaven,:616–20 from which he will return .:1091–109 Most Christian scholars today present Jesus as the awaited Messiah promised in the Old Testament and as God, arguing that he fulfilled many Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament . The majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, one of three divine persons of a reject Trinitarianism Trinity, wholly or partly, believing it to be non-scriptural. Alexios III Angelos (Greek: Αλέξιος Γ' Άγγελος) (c. 1153 – 1211) was Byzantine emperor from 1195 to 1203. // Early life Alexios III Angelos was the second son of Andronicos Angelos and Euphrosyne Castamonitissa. Andronicus was himself a son of Theodora Comnene, the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Ducaena . Thus Alexius Angelus was a member of the extended imperial family. Together with his father and brothers, Alexios had conspired against Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (c. 1183), and thus he spent several years in exile in Muslim courts, including that of Saladin . His younger brother Isaac II Angelos , was threatened with execution under orders of their first cousin once removed Andronicos I Comnenos on September 11 , 1185. Isaac made a desperate attack on the imperial agents and killed their leader Stephanus Hagiochristophorites . He then took refuge in the church of Hagia Sophia and from there appealed to the populace. His actions provoked a riot, which resulted in the deposition of Andronicus I, and the proclamation of Isaac II Angelus as emperor. Alexius was now closer to the imperial throne than ever before. Reign By 1190 Alexios Angelos had returned to the court of his younger brother, from whom he received the elevated title of sebastokratōr . In 1195, while Isaac II was away hunting in Thrace , Alexius was acclaimed as emperor by the troops with the conniving of Alexios' wife Euphrosyne Ducaena Camatera . Alexios captured Isaac at Stagira in Macedonia , put out his eyes, and thenceforth kept him a close prisoner, though he had been redeemed by him from captivity at Antioch and loaded with honours. To compensate for this crime and to solidify his position as emperor, Alexios had to scatter money so lavishly as to empty his treasury, and to allow such licence to the officers of the army as to leave the Empire practically defenceless. He consummated the financial ruin of the state. In 1195, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI forced Alexios III to pay him a tribute of 1,000 pounds of gold (originally 5,000 pounds of gold). The able and forceful empress Euphrosyne Ducaena Camatera tried in vain to sustain his credit and his court; Vatatzes, the favourite instrument of her attempts at reform, was assassinated by the emperor's orders. In the east the Empire was overrun by the Seljuk Turks ; from the north Bulgarians and Vlachs descended unchecked to ravage the plains of Macedonia and Thrace, and Kaloyan of Bulgaria annexed several important cities, while Alexius squandered the public treasure on his palaces and gardens and attempted to deal with the crisis through diplomatic means. The emperor's attempts to bolster the empire's defenses by special concessions to Byzantine and Bulgarian notables in the frontier zone backfired, as the latter built up regional autonomy. Byzantine authority survived, but in a much weakened state. Fourth Crusade Soon Alexios was threatened by a new and yet more formidable danger. In 1202 the Western princes assembled at Venice launched the Fourth Crusade . Alexios IV Angelos , the son of the deposed Isaac II, had recently escaped from Constantinople and now appealed to the crusaders, promising to end the schism of East and West , to pay for their transport, and to provide military support to the crusaders if they helped him to depose his uncle and sit on his father's throne. The crusaders, whose objective had been Egypt , were persuaded to set their course for Constantinople before which they appeared in June 1203, proclaiming Alexios as emperor and inviting the populace of the capital to depose his uncle. Alexius III took no efficient measures to resist, and his attempts to bribe the crusaders failed. His son-in-law, Theodore Lascaris , who was the only one to attempt anything significant, was defeated at Scutari , and the siege of Constantinople began. Unfortunately for Constantinople, Alexius III's misgovernment had left the Byzantine navy with only 20 worm-eaten hulks by the time the Crusaders arrived. In July, the crusaders, led by the aged Doge Enrico Dandolo , scaled the walls and took control of a major section. In the ensuing fighting, the crusaders set the city on fire, ultimately leaving 20,000 people homeless. Alexios III finally took action, and led 17 divisions from the St. Romanus Gate, vastly outnumbering the crusaders. But his courage failed, and the Byzantine army returned to the city without a fight. His courtiers demanded action, and Alexius promised to fight. Instead, that night (July 17/18), Alexios III hid in the palace, and finally, with one of his daughters, Eirene, and such treasures (1,000 pounds of gold) as he could collect, got into a boat and escaped to Develton in Thrace , leaving his wife and his other daughters behind. Isaac II, drawn from his prison and robed once more in the imperial purple, received his son in state. Life in exile Alexius attempted to organize a resistance to the new regime from Adrianople and then Mosynopolis , where he was joined by the later usurper Murtzuphlus Alexius V Ducas in April 1204, after the definitive fall of Constantinople to the crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire . At first Alexios III received Alexius V well, even allowing him to marry his daughter Eudocia Angelina . Later Alexios V was blinded and deserted by his father-in-law, who fled from the crusaders into Thessaly . Here Alexius III eventually surrendered, with Euphrosyne, to Marquis Boniface of Montferrat , who was establishing himself as ruler of the Kingdom of Thessalonica . Trying to escape Boniface's "protection", Alexius III attempted to seek shelter with Michael I Ducas , the ruler of Epirus , in 1205. Captured by Boniface, Alexius III and his retinue were sent to Montferrat , before being brought back to Thessalonica c. 1209. At that point the deposed emperor was ransomed by Michael I of Epirus, who sent him to Asia Minor , where Alexios' son-in-law Theodore I Lascaris of the Empire of Nicaea was holding his own against the Latins. Here Alexios III conspired against his son-in-law after the latter refused to recognize Alexius' authority, and received the support of Kay Khusrau I , the sultan of Rüm . In the battle of Antioch on the Maeander in 1211, the sultan was defeated and killed, and Alexius III was captured by Theodore Lascaris. Alexius III was relegated to a monastery at Nicaea , where he died later in 1211. Family By his marriage to Euphrosyne Doucaena Camaterina Alexios had three daughters: Eirene Angelina, who married (1) Andronicus Contostephanus, and (2) Alexius Palaeologus, by whom she was the grandmother of Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus . Anna Angelina , who married (1) the sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos, great-nephew of emperor Manuel I Comnenus , and (2) Theodore Lascaris , emperor of Nicaea. Eudocia Angelina , who married (1) King Prvovenčani Stefan I of Serbia , then (2) Emperor Alexius V , and (3) Leo Sgouros , ruler of Corinth . Labarum of Constantine I, displaying the "Chi-Rho" symbol above. The labarum was a vexillum (military standard) that displayed the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧ , formed from the first two Greek letters of the word "Christ" — Chi and Rho . It was first used by the Roman emperor Constantine I . Since the vexillum consisted of a flag suspended from the crossbar of a cross, it was ideally suited to symbolize the crucifixion of Christ . Later usage has sometimes regarded the terms "labarum" and "Chi-Rho" as synonyms. Ancient sources, however, draw an unambiguous distinction between the two. Etymology Beyond its derivation from Latin labarum, the etymology of the word is unclear. Some derive it from Latin /labāre/ 'to totter, to waver' (in the sense of the "waving" of a flag in the breeze) or laureum [vexillum] ("laurel standard"). According to the Real Academia Española , the related lábaro is also derived from Latin labărum but offers no further derivation from within Latin, as does the Oxford English Dictionary.[5] An origin as a loan into Latin from a Celtic language or Basque has also been postulated. There is a traditional Basque symbol called the lauburu ; though the name is only attested from the 19th century onwards the motif occurs in engravings dating as early as the 2nd century AD. Vision of Constantine A coin of Constantine (c.337) showing a depiction of his labarum spearing a serpent. On the evening of October 27, 312, with his army preparing for the Battle of the Milvian Bridge , the emperor Constantine I claimed to have had a vision which led him to believe he was fighting under the protection of the Christian God . Lactantius states that, in the night before the battle, Constantine was commanded in a dream to "delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers". He obeyed and marked the shields with a sign "denoting Christ". Lactantius describes that sign as a "staurogram", or a Latin cross with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion, rather than the better known Chi-Rho sign described by Eusebius of Caesarea . Thus, it had both the form of a cross and the monogram of Christ's name from the formed letters "X" and "P", the first letters of Christ's name in Greek. From Eusebius, two accounts of a battle survive. The first, shorter one in the Ecclesiastical History leaves no doubt that God helped Constantine but doesn't mention any vision. In his later Life of Constantine, Eusebius gives a detailed account of a vision and stresses that he had heard the story from the emperor himself. According to this version, Constantine with his army was marching somewhere (Eusebius doesn't specify the actual location of the event, but it clearly isn't in the camp at Rome) when he looked up to the sun and saw a cross of light above it, and with it the Greek words Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα . The traditionally employed Latin translation of the Greek is in hoc signo vinces — literally "In this sign, you will conquer." However, a direct translation from the original Greek text of Eusebius into English gives the phrase "By this, conquer!" At first he was unsure of the meaning of the apparition, but the following night he had a dream in which Christ explained to him that he should use the sign against his enemies. Eusebius then continues to describe the labarum, the military standard used by Constantine in his later wars against Licinius , showing the Chi-Rho sign. Those two accounts can hardly be reconciled with each other, though they have been merged in popular notion into Constantine seeing the Chi-Rho sign on the evening before the battle. Both authors agree that the sign was not readily understandable as denoting Christ, which corresponds with the fact that there is no certain evidence of the use of the letters chi and rho as a Christian sign before Constantine. Its first appearance is on a Constantinian silver coin from c. 317, which proves that Constantine did use the sign at that time, though not very prominently. He made extensive use of the Chi-Rho and the labarum only later in the conflict with Licinius. The vision has been interpreted in a solar context (e.g. as a solar halo phenomenon), which would have been reshaped to fit with the Christian beliefs of the later Constantine. An alternate explanation of the intersecting celestial symbol has been advanced by George Latura, which claims that Plato's visible god in Timaeus is in fact the intersection of the Milky Way and the Zodiacal Light, a rare apparition important to pagan beliefs that Christian bishops reinvented as a Christian symbol. Eusebius' description of the labarum "A Description of the Standard of the Cross, which the Romans now call the Labarum." "Now it was made in the following manner. A long spear, overlaid with gold, formed the figure of the cross by means of a transverse bar laid over it. On the top of the whole was fixed a wreath of gold and precious stones; and within this, the symbol of the Saviour’s name, two letters indicating the name of Christ by means of its initial characters, the letter P being intersected by X in its centre: and these letters the emperor was in the habit of wearing on his helmet at a later period. From the cross-bar of the spear was suspended a cloth, a royal piece, covered with a profuse embroidery of most brilliant precious stones; and which, being also richly interlaced with gold, presented an indescribable degree of beauty to the beholder. This banner was of a square form, and the upright staff, whose lower section was of great length, of the pious emperor and his children on its upper part, beneath the trophy of the cross, and immediately above the embroidered banner." "The emperor constantly made use of this sign of salvation as a safeguard against every adverse and hostile power, and commanded that others similar to it should be carried at the head of all his armies." Iconographic career under Constantine Coin of Vetranio , a soldier is holding two labara. Interestingly they differ from the labarum of Constantine in having the Chi-Rho depicted on the cloth rather than above it, and in having their staves decorated with phalerae as were earlier Roman military unit standards. The emperor Honorius holding a variant of the labarum - the Latin phrase on the cloth means "In the name of Christ [rendered by the Greek letters XPI] be ever victorious." Among a number of standards depicted on the Arch of Constantine , which was erected, largely with fragments from older monuments, just three years after the battle, the labarum does not appear. A grand opportunity for just the kind of political propaganda that the Arch otherwise was expressly built to present was missed. That is if Eusebius' oath-confirmed account of Constantine's sudden, vision-induced, conversion can be trusted. Many historians have argued that in the early years after the battle the emperor had not yet decided to give clear public support to Christianity, whether from a lack of personal faith or because of fear of religious friction. The arch's inscription does say that the Emperor had saved the res publica INSTINCTV DIVINITATIS MENTIS MAGNITVDINE ("by greatness of mind and by instinct [or impulse] of divinity"). As with his predecessors, sun symbolism – interpreted as representing Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) or Helios , Apollo or Mithras – is inscribed on his coinage, but in 325 and thereafter the coinage ceases to be explicitly pagan, and Sol Invictus disappears. In his Historia Ecclesiae Eusebius further reports that, after his victorious entry into Rome, Constantine had a statue of himself erected, "holding the sign of the Savior [the cross] in his right hand." There are no other reports to confirm such a monument. Whether Constantine was the first Christian emperor supporting a peaceful transition to Christianity during his rule, or an undecided pagan believer until middle age, strongly influenced in his political-religious decisions by his Christian mother St. Helena , is still in dispute among historians. As for the labarum itself, there is little evidence for its use before 317.In the course of Constantine's second war against Licinius in 324, the latter developed a superstitious dread of Constantine's standard. During the attack of Constantine's troops at the Battle of Adrianople the guard of the labarum standard were directed to move it to any part of the field where his soldiers seemed to be faltering. The appearance of this talismanic object appeared to embolden Constantine's troops and dismay those of Licinius.At the final battle of the war, the Battle of Chrysopolis , Licinius, though prominently displaying the images of Rome's pagan pantheon on his own battle line, forbade his troops from actively attacking the labarum, or even looking at it directly.[16] Constantine felt that both Licinius and Arius were agents of Satan, and associated them with the serpent described in the Book of Revelation (12:9). Constantine represented Licinius as a snake on his coins. Eusebius stated that in addition to the singular labarum of Constantine, other similar standards (labara) were issued to the Roman army. This is confirmed by the two labara depicted being held by a soldier on a coin of Vetranio (illustrated) dating from 350. Later usage Modern ecclesiastical labara (Southern Germany). The emperor Constantine Monomachos (centre panel of a Byzantine enamelled crown) holding a miniature labarum Frequently Asked Questions How long until my order is shipped?: Depending on the volume of sales, it may take up to 5 business days for shipment of your order after the receipt of payment. How will I know when the order was shipped?: After your order has shipped, you will be left positive feedback, and that date should be used as a basis of estimating an arrival date. After you shipped the order, how long will the mail take? USPS First Class mail takes about 3-5 business days to arrive in the U.S., international shipping times cannot be estimated as they vary from country to country. I am not responsible for any USPS delivery delays, especially for an international package. What is a certificate of authenticity and what guarantees do you give that the item is authentic? 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Price: 60 USD

Location: Rego Park, New York

End Time: 2023-11-20T02:23:32.000Z

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