Theoderic (Anastasius)

The coin combines the cross on the diadem of the emperor with the western mintmark COMOB. It shows Victoria with the long cross and an officina Theta (9).

1. The Long Cross

The composition with the long cross in the hand of Victoria can be traced back to the Persian war of the 420s, which was triggered by a persecution of Christians. The cross with two lines of dots probably refers to the jewelled gold cross that Emperor Theodosius II and his sister Pulcheria had erected on the site of Christ's crucifixion in Jerusalem to mark a victory reported in autumn 421. When Pulcheria came back to power in 450 and Marcianus became emperor by marrying her, they revived this type, which originally had a votive inscription, with the new legend VICTORIA AVGGG. The three GGGs do not stand for specifically three Augusti, but for the multitude of emperors who believed in the victorious cross and fought and would continue to fight for it. The long cross was replaced by the Chi-Rho cross with the new tax cycle (Indiction) in 507.

2. The cross on the helmet

Solidi that show a simple cross instead of the three-leafed frontal jewel (which indicates the Holy Trinity) on the emperor's diadem are relatively rare. One possible explanation is that they were intended to express the religious views of the emperor: Anastasius favoured Monophysitism (the doctrine of the single nature of Christ in the dispute over the divinity of Christ), which not only annoyed his empress Ariadne, but also led to political unrest. The diadem cross is also rarely found on Constantinopolitan copper coins, but regularly in Antioch, a centre of Monophysitism. The Greek, isosceles cross was particularly attractive to followers of this faith because of its symbolism. It also appears on Ostrogothic tremisses from Milan.

3. Mintmark and officina letter

At the end of the legend of the reverse of the Constantinopolitan solidi with the eastern mintmark CONOB, there is almost always a Greek letter with which (according to the Milesian numerical alphabet) the ten offices (Alpa, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Digamma, Zeta, Eta, Theta and Iota) were numbered. As a result of a long period of minting, Anastasius solidi of this type (MIB 4) are very numerous from all the offices. The most common pieces (about 40%) come from the tenth office (Iota - I). 

My solidus below shows the office theta (9) in combination with the western mintmark COMOB. Since the western mints did not mint in 10 (or 9) offices, it can be assumed that the Greek theta in this case is to be understood as an initial (TH) for Theoderic. The same is true for the officina T, which appears on some rare solidi, but which does not exist and most likely indicates the authority of Theoderic. Ticinum had no active mint at the time and cannot have been the place of production of coins with officina letter T.