Byzantine Empire , Syracuse, Follis (17mm, 3.76g, )

Byzantine Empire , Syracuse, Follis  (17mm, 3.76g, )

Theophilus (829-842). Æ 10 Nummi (17mm, 3.76g, 6h). Syracuse, 830-842. Crowned facing bust, wearing chlamys and holding globus cruciger. R/ Large M; X/X/X and N/N/N on either side; cross above; Δ below. DOC 30; Sear 1681. Near EF                                          

Theophilos (c. 812  – 20 January 842) was the Byzantine Emperor from 829 until his death in 842. He was the second emperor of the Amorian dynasty and the last emperor to support iconoclasm. Theophilos personally led the armies in his long war against the Arabs, beginning in 831.

Sicily After a period of Vandal rule, 469–477, Syracuse and the island was recovered for Roman rule under Odoacer, 476–491 and Theodoric the Great, 491–526, by Belisarius for the Byzantine Empire (31 December 535).[20] From 663 to 668 Syracuse was the seat of the Greek-speaking Emperor Constans II, as well as a capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire and metropolis of the whole Sicilian Church. Constans II was assassinated when his plans to permanently replace the Byzantine capital of Constantinople with Syracuse became suspected.

The city was besieged by the Aghlabids for almost a year in 827–828, but Byzantine reinforcements prevented its fall. It remained the center of Byzantine resistance to the gradual Muslim conquest of Sicily until it fell to the Aghlabids after another siege on 20/21 May 878.