Byzantine Philanthropy and Cherson: Two Examples in the Field of Sigillography

Introduction. The ancient authors’ accounts often describe Byzantium as a state rich in material goods and very humane, where the people are famous for their boundless philanthropy, manifesting itself in diverse spheres of public life. There are numerous reports that the Byzantines took seriously their “brothers, the poor” – sick and disabled persons in particular. Among the forms of assistance to the indigent and poor, there were distributions of food rations, clothes, and certain sums of money. An illustration of this humanitarian activity of the Byzantine elite is the special tokens, or tesserae, which from time to time occur amidst the sigillographic monuments and as a rule bear the name of the person who funded such a charitable action. Methods. The comparative analysis of written and sigillographic sources uncovers new, previously unknown pages in the history of Byzantine Cherson, related to the imperial philanthropy and the Chersonites’ obvious participation in the capital’s humanitarian events. Analysis and results. Among the recent finds from the site of Byzantine Cherson, there are two artefacts directly related to the activities in question dating from the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. These works were made by certain representatives of the Byzantine nobility: Nicholas, eparchos of Constantinople, anthypatos and patrikios, and Nicholas Pentailopoulos, patrikios. The appearance of the charitable tesserae from the capital in Cherson to some extent sheds light on the specifics of the organisation of imperial philanthropic actions distributions: by all appearances, among the organisers, or patrons of humanitarian actions, there were not only high-ranking office-holders from the imperial capital but also some provincial aristocrats invited as philanthropists.