62, Lot: 129. Estimate $400. Sold for $445. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BASIL II and CONSTANTINE VIII. 976-1025 AD. AV Histamenon (24mm, 4.43 gm). Constantinople mint. Struck 989-1001 AD. Nimbate facing bust of Christ, holding Gospels / Crowned facing busts of Basil, wearing loros, and Constantine, wearing chlamys, holding cross (• on shaft) between them. DOC III 3i; SB 11797. Good VF.

Probably the most militant of Byzantine emperors, Basil never married and instead devoted all his energies to expanding the empire by fighting the Bulgarians, Fatimids, Georgians, and the western principalites. His capture and subsequent blinding of 14,000 Bulgarians at the battle of Kleidon in 1014 earned him the nickname Bulgar-Slayer (Bulgaroktonos). At Basil's death, his brother Constantine VIII, an ineffective and frivolous ruler, in his short three-year reign, undid much that his brother had accomplished.