Holding power in your hands

“I think I recognize the items she is holding”, Maurizio said. “Any Christian subject would have recognized the two items that Irene is holding in her hands. In her right hand she is holding the globus cruciger, or the orb with the cross”. “We, Byzantines They did more often call themselves Romaioi, or Romans. We have just Byzantines as a means to progress the story, call it the sfaira staurofora, it's a Greek name. Most of the Byzantine emperors on coins and seals were depicted as holding this object, but I cannot recall seeing it anywhere else.” While this item is depicted very often with Byzantine rulers on coins and seals, it is very absent from other figurative media. It is therefore the assumption of scholars that this orb was purely a symbolic object and that this did not really exist in any physical form, at least in this period (Dawson 2015)

“In her other hand she holds the cross-shaped scepter. This scepter seems to have evolved from being a consular attribute of the late Roman empire, in which it was commonly depicted as a staff with an eagle sitting on top of it. At that time it was called the skipiô. In the third and fourth centuries, the empire became more and more Christianized and the eagle on the staff was replaced with the cross. The name also changed from the Latin skipiô to the more Greek skêpiôn or even skêptron in some sources. Dawson, T., By the Emperor's Hand: Military Dress and Court Regalia in the Later Romano-Byzantine Empire (Yorkshire 2015) Thus the cross-shaped scepter was born.”

“Both of these items were thus symbols of regal Christian authority, physical or more symbolic, and could be seen with many more of the previous and later Byzantine emperors. The depiction of these attributes on this coin shows us that Irene was the person who held this authority in the Byzantine empire.”

“It would be interesting to see how the other side relates to this side…”, thought Maurizio. So he flipped the coin.