JUSTIN II & Queen Sophia 565AD Ancient Byzantine Coin Large M i20064

Description

Item:
i20064
Authentic Ancient  Coin of:
Byzantine - Justin II & Queen Sophia -
Bronze Follis 27mm (14.59 grams) Struck at the mint of Constantinople circa  November
15, 565 A.D. - October 5, 578 A.D.
Reference: Sear 360
D N IVSTINVS PP AVG - Justin, on left, and Sophia on right, seated facing on  double throne, both nimbate; he holds globe cross, she holds cruciform sceptre.
Large M; above ┼; to left, A / N / N O ; to right, numerals representing regnal  year beneath, officina letter Γ, in exergue CON.
* Numismatic Note: Rare type.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,  provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of  Authenticity.
Flavius Iustinus (Iunior) Augustus
[1]
(c. 520 - 5 October 578) was Eastern Roman emperor from 565 to 578. He was the nephew of Justinian  I , and husband of Sophia , the niece of the late empress Theodora , and therefore member of the Justinian Dynasty . His reign is marked by war with Persia and the loss of the greater part of Italy .
Reign
When Justinian died on  November  14 , 565 ,  Justin was elevated to the imperial throne by a group of court officials  claiming that Justinian had named him as his successor on his deathbed, thus  passing by another possible candidate for imperial succession, a nephew of  Justinian Germanus , also called Justin, who was not present in the capital at the time  of the emperor's death.
In the first few days of his reign Justin paid his uncle's debts,  administered justice in person, and proclaimed universal religious toleration.  Contrary to his uncle, Justin relied completely on the support of the  aristocratic party.
Proud of character, and faced with an empty treasury, he discontinued  Justinian's practice of buying off potential enemies. Immediately after his  accession, Justin halted the payment of subsidies to the Avars , ending a truce that had existed since 558. After the Avars and the  neighbouring tribe of the Lombards had combined to destroy the Gepids , from  whom Justin had obtained the Danube fortress of Sirmium , Avar  pressure caused the Lombards to migrate West, and in 568 they invaded Italy under their  king Alboin .  They quickly overran the Po valley, and within a few years they had made  themselves masters of nearly the entire country. The Avars themselves crossed  the Danube in 573 or 574, when the empire's attention was distracted by troubles  on the Persian frontier. They were only placated by the payment of a subsidy of  60,000 silver pieces by Justin's successor Tiberius .
The North and East frontiers were the main focus of Justin's attention. In  572 his refusal to pay tribute to the Persians in combination with overtures to the Turks led to a war with the  Sassanid Empire. After two disastrous campaigns, in which the Persians overran Syria and  captured the strategically important fortress of Dara, Justin  reportedly lost his mind. The temporary fits of insanity into which he fell  warned him to name a colleague. Passing over his own relatives, he raised, on  the advice of Sophia, the general Tiberius to be Caesar in December 574 and withdrew into retirement. In 574,  Sophia paid 45,000
solidi
to Chosroes in return for a year's truce.
[2]
Sophia and Tiberius ruled together as joint regents for four years, while Justin  sank into growing insanity .  When he died in 578 Tiberius succeeded him as Tiberius II Constantine .
Personal traits
The historian Previte-Orton describes Justin as "a rigid man, dazzled by his  predecessor's glories, to whom fell the task of guiding an exhausted,  ill-defended Empire through a crisis of the first magnitude and a new movement  of peoples". Previte-Orton continues,
In foreign affairs he took the attitude of the invincible, unbending  Roman, and in the disasters which his lack of realism occasioned, his reason  ultimately gave way. It was foreign powers which he underrated and hoped to  bluff by a lofty inflexibility, for he was well aware of the desperate state  of the finances and the army and of the need to reconcile the Monophysites ."
[3]
Speech at abdication
The tardy knowledge of his own impotence determined him to lay down the  weight of the diadem; he showed some symptoms of a discerning and even  magnanimous spirit when he addressed his assembly,
"You behold", said the emperor, "the ensigns of supreme power. You are  about to receive them, not from my hand, but from the hand of God. Honor  them, and from them you will derive honor. Respect the empress your mother:  you are now her son; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood;  abstain from revenge; avoid those actions by which I have incurred the  public hatred; and consult the experience, rather than the example, of your  predecessor. As a man, I have sinned; as a sinner, even in this life, I have  been severely punished: but these servants, (and we pointed to his  ministers,) who have abused my confidence, and inflamed my passions, will  appear with me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled by the  splendor of the diadem: be thou wise and modest; remember what you have  been, remember what you are. You see around us your slaves, and your  children: with the authority, assume the tenderness, of a parent. Love your  people like yourself; cultivate the affections, maintain the discipline, of  the army; protect the fortunes of the rich, relieve the necessities of the  poor."
In silence and in tears, the assembly applauded the counsels, and sympathized  with the repentance of their prince. Tiberius received the diadem on his knees;  and Justin, who in his abdication appeared most worthy to reign, addressed the  new monarch in the following words: "If you consent, I live; if you command, I  die: may the God of heaven and earth infuse into your heart whatever I have  neglected or forgotten." The four last years of the emperor Justin were passed  in tranquil obscurity: his conscience was no longer tormented by the remembrance  of those duties which he was incapable of discharging; and his choice was  justified by the filial reverence and gratitude of Tiberius.
[4]
Justin's insanity
According to John of Ephesus , as Justin II slipped into the unbridled madness of his  final days he was pulled through the palace on a wheeled throne, biting  attendants as he passed. He reportedly ordered organ music to be played  constantly throughout the palace in an attempt to soothe his frenzied mind, and  it was rumoured that his taste for attendants extended as far as devouring a  number of them during his reign.
[5]
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