Justinian II | First Reign, AD 685–695 | Constantinople Mint | Struck AD 692–695 NGC AU | 4.41 grams | Ch. XF | Strike 4/5 | Surface 3/5 | Clipped

Few ancient coins can claim to have changed the history of numismatics quite like this remarkable gold solidus. Struck at Constantinople during the first reign of Justinian II, this extraordinary issue bears what is widely regarded as the earliest surviving imperial coin portrait of Jesus Christ. Christ appears facing, with long flowing hair and a full beard, a cross behind His head, His right hand raised in blessing, and the Gospel book held in His left. Surrounding His portrait is the powerful inscription “IhS CRISTOS REX REGNANTIUM” — “Jesus Christ, King of those who reign.”

The significance of this image is difficult to overstate. For centuries, the obverse of Roman and Byzantine coinage had overwhelmingly been reserved for the emperor or an imperial deity. Justinian II dramatically changed that tradition. Christ occupies the dominant face of the coin, while the emperor himself is relegated to the reverse, where Justinian stands in imperial robes beneath an inscription identifying him as the “Servant of Christ.” The symbolism is unmistakable: the emperor may govern the Byzantine Empire, but his authority exists beneath the sovereignty of Christ. On a piece of gold small enough to fit beneath a modern thumbnail, Justinian was making a theological and political statement that would travel wherever Byzantine gold circulated.

The timing makes the issue even more fascinating. The coinage appeared shortly after the Quinisext, or Trullan, Council of AD 692, convened under Justinian II. Among the theological questions of the period was the appropriate representation of Christ. The council favored portraying Christ in human form rather than relying upon the earlier symbolic representation of the Lamb. Justinian's decision to place the human image of Christ directly upon the Empire's gold currency effectively transformed that theological development into something tangible and permanent. Every solidus that passed through the hands of merchants, soldiers, officials and citizens carried the image of Christ across the Byzantine world.

THE EMPEROR WHO WOULDN'T STAY DEAD And then there is Justinian II himself—one of the most extraordinary characters ever to sit upon the Byzantine throne.

Justinian became emperor at approximately 16 years of age, inheriting the throne after the death of his father, Constantine IV, in AD 685. He was extraordinarily young to wield the power of the Roman emperor, but he quickly demonstrated that he possessed none of the timidity one might expect from a teenage ruler. His reign was marked by military campaigns, taxation, religious controversy and an uncompromising determination to assert imperial authority.

That determination eventually became his undoing.

In AD 695, after approximately a decade on the throne, Justinian was overthrown in a rebellion. His enemies did not simply depose him—they attempted to make certain that he could never rule again. His nose was mutilated, a punishment intended to make him physically unfit to return to the imperial throne, since Byzantine political culture associated bodily perfection with legitimate imperial authority. He was subsequently exiled to Cherson, on the distant Crimean frontier.

It was here that Justinian earned the name by which history would remember him: Rhinotmetos, meaning “the Slit-Nosed.”

Most emperors would have disappeared into history at that moment.

Justinian II did not.

He escaped exile, survived a remarkable series of political intrigues, and eventually forged an alliance with the Khazars before securing the support of the Bulgarian ruler Tervel. With an army behind him, the mutilated former emperor marched back toward Constantinople.

In AD 705, roughly a decade after being thrown from power, Justinian II re-entered Constantinople and reclaimed the imperial throne.

Think about what that means when holding this coin: the emperor whose portrait appears on the reverse was not merely a young Byzantine ruler. He was a teenager who became emperor, was overthrown, mutilated, exiled, hunted, and presumed finished—only to return nearly ten years later and become emperor again.

His second reign was every bit as turbulent as the first. Justinian pursued vengeance against those responsible for his overthrow, executing former enemies and attempting to reassert his authority throughout the Empire. But his return could not last forever. In AD 711, another rebellion brought his second reign to an end. Justinian II was captured and executed, bringing one of the most astonishing imperial careers in Byzantine history to a violent conclusion.

His life reads less like the biography of an emperor and more like an ancient political thriller.

A PORTRAIT THAT CHANGED COINAGE At more than 1,300 years old, this solidus preserves one of the most consequential images ever placed upon a coin: the face of Christ in gold. And behind that face stands one of Byzantium's most unbelievable emperors—a 16-year-old who seized a throne, lost it, lost his nose, survived exile, returned to Constantinople and took the throne back.

A breathtaking portrait of Christ. A revolutionary moment in the history of coinage. And the gold of an emperor whose life was stranger than fiction. This is far more than an ancient coin—it is a tangible relic of the moment when the face of Christ entered the monetary history of civilization.