New Seal for the Hypatos Anastasius

CNG 108, Lot: 753. Estimate $500. Sold for $600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anastasius. Hypatos, imperial balnitor, and genikos kommerkiarios of the Hellespont and Lycia, 724/5. PB Seal (30mm, 28.03 g, 12h). Facing busts of Leo III and Constantine V, each crowned and draped and holding globus cruciger; across field, + H (= Indiction 8)/ ANACTACIOV/ VΠATOV BACI/ΛIKOV BAΛ/NITOP[OC] in five lines / [S ΓЄN]/IKOV KOM/MЄPKIAPI/OV AΠOΘHK/HC ЄΛΛICΠ/ONTOV S ΛY/[K]I[A]C in seven lines. Unpublished in the standard references. Good VF, tan-brown patina. Extremely rare and possibly unrecorded.

The career of the official Anastasius is well known from the surviving sygillographic evidence, although our seal is possibly unpublished and may shed new light on this figure, whom Nesbitt and Oikonomides (DOCBS I pp. 63-4) described as a “a wealthy businessman who farmed out the office of general kommerkiarios of several provinces between 718 and 727.” Anastasius only seems to be recorded as genikos kommerkiarios of the Hellespont for indiction year 5 (721/2), and, aside from the current piece, there does not appear to be any evidence that he served as genikos kommerkiarios of Lycia.

For overviews of Anastastius’ career, see BLS Vol. I/1, p. 158, Table 13 (and catalog numbers 223-4, 226-7, and 230-1), as well as PBE I [Martindale, John et al, (2001 and 2015). Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire (641-867). Online edition available at ], under PBE 1 (2018) Anastasios 24 .