Manuel I Comnenus (AD 1143-1180). AV hyperpyron (30mm, 4.35 gm, 6h). NGC Choice AU 4/5 - 2/5, edge crimps, graffiti. Constantinople, AD 1143-1152. +KERO-HΘEI, facing bust of youthful, beardless Christ, wearing nimbus cruciger with five pellets in each arm, pallium and colobium, raising right hand in benediction, scroll in left; barred IC-XC in fields, double border / MA/NΘV/HΛ/ΔЄC/ΠΟ/TH-Tw (ligate)/ΠOP/ΦV/ΓЄ/MNH (ligate)/Tw (ligate), Manuel I standing facing, wearing crown with pendilia, divitision and chlamys, labarum in right hand, globus surmounted by patriarchal cross in left; manus Dei in upper field to right, double border. Sear 1956. Though Manuel is often criticized for excessively ambitious policies and rarely judged among the best Byzantine rulers, it is hard to argue with his diplomatic ability and the dominant position the empire enjoyed at the end of his 37-year reign. It is a remarkable fact that the two forces that came together to sack Constantinople in 1204, the Crusaders and Venice, were both completely under Manuel's thumb and in submission to Byzantium less than a quarter-century earlier (at the end of his reign). Manuel established supremacy over the Crusader States in the late 1150s, allying himself with the King of Jerusalem and, in a stunning display of submission, forcing the Prince of Antioch Raynald of Châtillon to appear before him in a sack with a rope tied around his neck and then walk on foot behind him while the emperor, on horseback, made his triumphal entrance in Antioch in 1159. Twelve years later, when Venice declared war on Byzantium but was decisively defeated by Manuel's navy, he used the opportunity to revoke all the trade privileges that his father and grandfather had granted the Venetians. Thus, at his death in 1180, Constantinople's position in the Mediterranean was the strongest it had been since the days of Basil II, and Manuel can be considered the last great Byzantine emperor. HID09801242017 © 2023 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

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