Kinzer Coins

Constantine VI & Irene Ancient Byzantine Bronze Follis — Mother & Son Co-Rulers (AD 780–797)

Name: Constantine VI & Irene Ancient Byzantine Bronze Follis — Mother & Son Co-Rulers (AD 780–797)
Brand: Kinzer Coins
Price: 325.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Constantine VI & Irene Ancient Byzantine Bronze Follis — Mother & Son Co-Rulers (AD 780–797)

$325.00 USD

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Constantine VI & Irene Byzantine Follis — Mother and Son Co-Rulers

Own a Coin from One of Byzantium’s Most Dramatic Dynastic Struggles

The exact Byzantine bronze follis of Constantine VI and Irene shown, struck during the years in which mother and son shared imperial authority before their political struggle ended with Constantine’s deposition and blinding.

✓ Guaranteed Authentic
✓ Exact Coin Shown
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👑 Features Constantine VI and Empress Irene within the dynastic imagery of their joint rule
✝ Issued during the era of the Second Council of Nicaea in AD 787, which restored the veneration of icons
🤲 A genuine coin from one of the most consequential family struggles in Byzantine political history

Own This Piece of History

Why This Coin Matters

When Emperor Leo IV died in AD 780, his young son Constantine VI succeeded him. Because Constantine was still a child, his mother Irene governed as regent.

Irene became one of the most powerful political figures of the eighth-century empire. During the regency, the imperial government supported the Second Council of Nicaea in AD 787, which restored the veneration of icons and ended the first phase of Byzantine Iconoclasm.

As Constantine reached adulthood, the relationship between mother and son became increasingly unstable. Power shifted between them through court struggles, military opposition, and political reversals before Irene’s supporters finally prevailed.

In AD 797, Constantine was seized and blinded on Irene’s orders or with her approval. The operation ended his reign and left Irene as sole ruler.

The exact fate of Constantine after the blinding is uncertain. Some traditions imply that he died from his injuries soon afterward, while other reconstructions allow that he may have survived for some time. The surviving evidence does not justify stating his immediate death as certain.

Irene thereafter ruled in her own right without a male co-emperor, an extraordinary position in Roman imperial history. Modern historians often describe her as the first woman to rule the Roman Empire as sole empress regnant.

This follis belongs to the period before that final rupture, when imperial imagery still presented Constantine and Irene within a shared dynastic framework.