An Empire in Crisis

When Heraclius became emperor in AD 610, he inherited a state weakened by civil war, strained finances, and military defeats. The greatest threat came from the Sasanian Empire under Khosrow II. Persian armies conquered much of the Roman Levant, captured Jerusalem in AD 614, carried away the relic believed to be the True Cross, and later took Egypt. Persian forces also campaigned deep into Asia Minor, at times reaching Chalcedon across the Bosporus from Constantinople.

The empire faced one of the gravest crises in its long history.

The Enemy Across the Border

Khosrow II Sasanian Silver Drachm, AD 590 to 628

The Persian shah whose armies took Jerusalem and the True Cross. Own the coinage of the very empire Heraclius spent his reign fighting to survive.

$125.50 View This Coin

Financing a Desperate War

Heraclius needed extraordinary resources to rebuild the army and continue the war. Byzantine sources describe Patriarch Sergius and the Church making wealth available to the imperial government during the emergency. Ecclesiastical treasure and precious metal were part of the wider financial mobilization that supported the struggle against Persia.

Around this same wartime period, the government introduced a substantial new silver denomination now called the hexagram, named from its approximate weight standard of six scruples. Scholars commonly associate the new silver issue with Heraclius's emergency war finance. What we cannot establish is that any particular surviving hexagram was literally made from a specific church vessel or plate. The connection is historical and fiscal, not a provenance that can be demonstrated coin by coin.

The hexagram nevertheless became the principal silver denomination of Heraclius's wartime coinage and one of the defining monetary innovations of his reign.

What Appears on the Coin

Many hexagrams depict Heraclius with his son and heir Heraclius Constantine, emphasizing dynastic continuity during a time of crisis. The reverse normally features a cross on steps and the celebrated inscription DEUS ADIUTA ROMANIS.

The imagery joined dynasty, Christianity, and imperial survival in a single object. The emperor and his heir occupied one side; the cross and a plea for divine aid dominated the other.

"God Help the Romans"

DEUS ADIUTA ROMANIS. God Help the Romans. The wording is unusually direct for imperial coinage. Roman and Byzantine coins frequently proclaimed victory, prosperity, or divine favor; the hexagram instead preserves the language of appeal during an existential war.

It also preserves the identity of the people who issued it. The inhabitants of the empire did not call themselves "Byzantines." They understood themselves as Romans, and the coin's prayer was explicitly for the Romans.

The Counterattack

Beginning in AD 622, Heraclius led a series of bold campaigns against Persia. His operations culminated in the Roman victory near Nineveh in AD 627. Khosrow II was soon overthrown, and the new Persian government made peace. The territories seized during the war were restored, and the True Cross was recovered. Traditional accounts place Heraclius's ceremonial restoration of the relic to Jerusalem in AD 630.

For a brief moment, the empire had reversed what had looked like certain defeat.

Own a Coin of Heraclius

Heraclius Byzantine Bronze Follis, AD 610 to 641

The emperor who saved the Eastern Roman Empire, on an affordable bronze from the same reign that produced the famous hexagram. A genuine coin of the man himself.

$51.00 View This Coin

The Cruel Irony

The victory proved tragically short-lived. Both Rome and Persia had been exhausted by decades of war just as Arab Muslim armies began expanding beyond Arabia. Roman forces suffered a decisive defeat at Yarmouk in AD 636, and much of the Roman Levant and Egypt were lost from durable Byzantine control.

That does not mean Romans never again entered those regions: later Byzantine emperors recovered parts of the northern Levant and other frontier territories for periods of time. But the great seventh-century loss permanently shifted the empire's political and economic center toward Anatolia and Constantinople. The Sasanian Empire soon collapsed entirely. The Roman Empire survived, but in a smaller and increasingly Greek-speaking form.

Why Collect a Hexagram of Heraclius?

Few Byzantine coins can be tied so closely to a turning point in world history.

Most of all, the hexagram preserves a remarkable message in silver: not simply a boast of victory, but a prayer for the survival of the Romans.

History wasn't just written. It was minted.