PHOCAS Original Authentic Ancient 603AD Byzantine Follis Coin XXXX NGC I84977

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Item:<br>i84977<br>Authentic Ancient Coin of:<br>Byzantine Empire<br>Phocas<br>- Emperor: November 23, 602 - October 5, 610 A.D.<br>Bronze Follis 31mm (10.67 grams) Constantinople mint, 4th officina. Dated RY 2 (603/4).<br>Reference: Sear 640<br>Certification:<br>NGC Ancients<br>VF  5873010-008<br>d N FOCAS PERP AVG,Crowned bust facing, wearing consular robes and holding mappa and cross.<br>Large XXXX; ANNO above; II (date) to right; CONΔ in exergue below.<br>You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.<br>Phocas<br>(Latin:<br>Flavius Phocas Augustus<br>; Greek:<br>Phokas<br>; 547 - 5 October 610) was Byzantine Emperor from 602 to 610. He usurped the throne from the Emperor Maurice, and was himself overthrown by Heraclius after losing a civil war.<br>Origins<br>Phocas was a Greek-speaking native of Thrace. Almost nothing is known of Phocas's early life and the name of his father is unknown. His mother was named Domentia (or Domentzia). He had at least two brothers, Comentiolus and Domentziolus.<br>By 600, he was a subaltern officer in the Byzantine army serving in Maurice's Balkan campaigns, and he was apparently viewed as a leader by his fellow soldiers. He was a member of a delegation sent by the army in that year to Constantinople to submit grievances to the government. The Avars had defeated the Byzantines in 598, had taken a large number of prisoners, and demanded a ransom. Maurice refused to pay and all the prisoners were killed, causing consternation among the army. The delegation's complaints were rejected, and, according to several sources, Phocas himself was slapped and humiliated by prominent court officials at this time.<br>Accession<br>In 602, having created unrest in the legions by reforms intended to reduce the expenses of their maintenance, Maurice ordered the Balkan army, then campaigning against the Avars, to winter on the north side of the Danube, the unprotected far side of the river's boundary. The army almost immediately revolted and marched on the capital, with Phocas at its head. Within a month, Maurice's government had collapsed, the Emperor abdicated and fled the city, and the "Green" faction in Constantinople acclaimed Phocas as emperor.<br>Phocas was crowned in the Church of St. John the Baptist and his wife Leontia was invested with the rank of<br>Augusta<br>. Maurice, who represented little genuine threat, was dragged from his monastic sanctuary at Chalcedon, and killed along with his six sons. It is said that he had to watch as his sons were executed in front of his eyes. The bodies were thrown in the sea and the heads of all were exhibited in Constantinople before Phocas made arrangements for a Christian burial for the relics of his deeply pious predecessor.<br>Phocas's rule was broadly welcomed at first because he lowered taxes, which had been high during the reign of Maurice. Fulsome letters of courtly praise from Pope Gregory I attest to this. The pope, Saint Gregory, appreciated his acceptance of the reforms he had begun. The agrarian reforms of the Church in Italy and particularly in Sicily had been followed in Egypt by the Orthodox Patriarchs. The reform consisted in naming "rectores" as administrators of the<br>latifundia<br>and eliminating contractors and parasitic middlemen who exploited the tenant farmers, reducing them to misery and undermining the incomes of the land owners.<br>The Church needed money to pay for hospitals, maternity wards and orphanages - social infrastructures that the state had left to the clergy. Phocas faced rising opposition and was regarded by many as a "populist". His coup d'état was the first violent regime change in Constantinople since its foundation by Constantine. He is reported to have responded to this opposition with cruelty, allegedly killing thousands in an effort to keep control of the government. This was probably an exaggeration. No histories written under Phocas survive, and thus we are dependent for information on historians writing under his successors.<br>Reign<br>See also: Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628 and Byzantine Papacy<br>Column of Phocas, the last monument erected in the Roman forum.<br>The Column of Phocas was the last Imperial monument ever to be erected in the Roman forum. In Phocas's reign, the Byzantines were sovereign over