PB Byzantine seal of Antonios, metropolitan of Smyrna (AD 10th century)
Obv: Half-length of St Polycarp (Polykarpos) offering a blessing and holding the Gospel. Along the circumference, within a double border of dots, a circular inscription beginning with a cross at seven o'clock: Ἄγηε Πολύκαρπε βοήθ(ει).
Rev: Inscription of four lines: Ἀντωνίῳ μητροπολίτῃ Σμύρνης. Double border of dots.
Translation: St Polycarp help, Antonios, metropolitan of Smyrna.
Parallel specimen, Laurent, Corpus V 741 = Schlumberger, Sceaux 52 = Konstantopulos (JIAN 5) 139.
Saint Polycarp was born around AD 70 in Asia Minor. Having remained an orphan early, he lived in the city of Smyrna and was raised by the widow Callista. After the death of his adoptive mother, Polycarp distributed the inherited property and began to lead a righteous life, serving the sick and infirm. He devoted his whole life to the ministry of the church and became a particularly revered bishop in Smyrna and the surrounding Churches already in the 2nd century AD. In this regard, the choice of the image of St Polycarp by the Smyrna metropolitans as a sigillographic type, apparently, is far from accidental.
Weight: 6.13 g.
Diameter: 23.82 mm.