CNG 99, Lot: 844. Estimate $300. Sold for $240. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Basil II Bulgaroktonos, with Constantine VIII. 976-1025. AR Miliaresion (25mm, 3.60 g, 12h). Constantinople mint. Cross crosslet set on pellet on four steps; X at center, • above crescent on shaft; to left and right, crowned facing busts of Basil, wearing loros, and Constantine, wearing chlamys / +ЬASIL’/ C CωҺSTAҺ’/ ΠORFVROS’/ ΠISτOI ЬAS’/ RωmAIω’ in five lines; – + – above and below. DOC 17a; SB 1810. Good VF, toned, a few minor scratches and light die rust.

From the Prue Morgan Fitts Collection.

Probably the most militant of the Byzantine emperors, Basil never married, devoting his entire reign to conducting campaigns against Bulgarians, Fatimids, Georgians and the western principalities. At the Battle of Kleidion in 1014, he acquired his nickname Bulgar-Slayer (Bulgaroktonos) when he captured and blinded somewhere between 8,000 and 15,000 Bulgarians (sparing one out of every one-hundred to lead the other ninety-nine home). The Bulgarian tsar Samuel is said to have died of despair when he saw what had been done to his men.