Solidus (Coin) Portraying Heraclius and His Son Heraclius Constantine
Byzantine (now Istanbul, Turkey)
613-616
- Medium
- Gold
- Classification
- Coin
- Dimensions
- Diam.: 2.1 cm (7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Byzantine Empire
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
- Credit line
- Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
After Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine emperors adopted Christian themes and symbols, most notably the cross, to stand for both the religion and the political state on their coinage. The previously ubiquitous profile portrait head was replaced by frontal or full-body depictions. Christ dominated the iconography, and Greek titles and phrases came to replace the Latin ones.
On the front (obverse) of this coin, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius is shown alongside his son, Heraclius Constantine; there is a cross between them. On the back (reverse) a Greek cross stands on a set of steps.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
