The ''zygostates'' (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: ζυγοστάτης, "one who weighs with a balance"; plural: ζυγοστάται, ''zygostatai'') was a public weigher of the

coinage Coinage may refer to: * Coins, standardized as currency * Neologism, coinage of a new word * '' COINage'', numismatics magazine * Tin coinage, a tax on refined tin * Protologism ''Protologism'' is a term coined in 2003 by the American literary ...

of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

..: "Finally, the ''zygostates'', the controller of the weight and quality of the imperial coinage, was dependent on the office of the ''sakellion''." According to the ''

Lex Julia A ''lex Julia'' (plural: ''leges Juliae'') was an ancient Roman law that was introduced by any member of the gens Julia. Most often, "Julian laws", ''lex Julia'' or ''leges Juliae'' refer to moral legislation introduced by Augustus in 23 BC, o ...

'', he was a municipal official whose function was to verify the quality of the

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

solidus Solidus (Latin for "solid") may refer to: * Solidus (coin), a Roman coin of nearly solid gold * Solidus (punctuation), or slash, a punctuation mark * Solidus (chemistry), the line on a phase diagram below which a substance is completely solid * ...

'' coins.

Description

The term ''zygostates'' often appears in inscriptions and papyri of the late

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

in the form of ''zygostates tes poleos'' (Greek: , "public weigher of the city"). The

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, to Fall of Constantinople, its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. On ...

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...

(r. 527–565) regarded the ''zygostatai'', in his 11th Edict, as the main offenders in changing the purity of gold coins. Some imperial seals bearing the name of ''zygostatai'' are preserved from the 6th and 7th centuries AD. In the '' Taktika'' of the 9th and 10th centuries AD, the ''zygostates'' is a state, rather than urban, functionary belonging to the staff of the '' sakellion''.. The epithet "imperial" is granted to the ''zygostates'' on a Byzantine seal dating to the 7th century AD. Based on this evidence,

John Bagnell Bury John Bagnell Bury (; 16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label "Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his ''Lat ...

surmised that in the 7th century the ''zygostates'' began to examine and weigh coins that came to the Byzantine imperial treasury. The Byzantine Greek

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

and abbot,

Theodore the Studite Theodore the Studite ( grc-x-medieval, Θεόδωρος ό Στουδίτης; 759–826), also known as Theodorus Studita and Saint Theodore of Stoudios/Studium, was a Byzantine Greek monk and abbot of the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople. ...

, described the ''zygostasia'', or the imperial station where the ''zygostatai'' worked, as a profitable business. As for

Christopher of Mytilene Christophoros of Mytilene ( gr, Χριστόφορος Μυτιληναῖος, Christophoros Mytilenaios; ca. 1000 – after 1050) was a Greek-language poet living in the first half of the 11th century. His works include poems on various subjects ...

, he praised a ''zygostates'' named Eustathios as the founder of a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

and "one of the great chartoularioi". The term ''zygastikon'' (Greek: ζυγαστικόν), attested in a false privilege granted to the city of

Monemvasia Monemvasia ( el, Μονεμβασιά, Μονεμβασία, or ) is a town and municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a small island off the east coast of the Peloponnese, surrounded by the Myrtoan Sea. The island is connected t ...

in 1316, refers to one of the customary payments made to toll inspectors for measuring and weighing wares. On a functional level, the ''zygastikon'' had nothing in common with the ''zygostates'' of the ''sakellion''.

References

Sources

* * Byzantine fiscal offices {{italic title