The zygostates (Greek: ζυγοστάτης, "one who weighs with a balance"; plural: ζυγοστάται, zygostatai) was a public weigher of the coinage of the Byzantine Empire.[1][2] According to the Lex Julia, he was a municipal official whose function was to verify the quality of the gold solidus coins.[1][3]

Description

The term zygostates often appears in inscriptions and papyri of the late Roman Empire in the form of zygostates tes poleos (Greek: ζυγοστάτης τῆς πόλεως, "public weigher of the city").[1] The Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) regarded the zygostatai, in his 11th Edict, as the main offenders in changing the purity of gold coins.[1] Some imperial seals bearing the name of zygostatai are preserved from the 6th and 7th centuries AD.[1] 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.[1][2][4] The epithet "imperial" is granted to the zygostates on a Byzantine seal dating to the 7th century AD.[1] Based on this evidence, John Bagnell Bury surmised that in the 7th century the zygostates began to examine and weigh coins that came to the Byzantine imperial treasury.[1] The Byzantine Greek monk and abbot, Theodore the Studite, described the zygostasia, or the imperial station where the zygostatai worked, as a profitable business.[1] As for Christopher of Mytilene, he praised a zygostates named Eustathios as the founder of a church and "one of the great chartoularioi".[1]

The term zygastikon (Greek: ζυγαστικόν), attested in a false privilege granted to the city of Monemvasia in 1316, refers to one of the customary payments made to toll inspectors for measuring and weighing wares.[1] On a functional level, the zygastikon had nothing in common with the zygostates of the sakellion.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ODB, "Zygostates", p. 2232.
  2. 1 2 Laiou 2002, Cecile Morrisson, "Byzantine Money: Its Production and Circulation", p. 913: "Finally, the zygostates, the controller of the weight and quality of the imperial coinage, was dependent on the office of the sakellion."
  3. ↑ See also Cod. Just. X.73.2.
  4. ↑ Laiou 2002, Nicolas Oikonomides, "The Role of the Byzantine State in the Economy", p. 993.

Sources

  • Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
  • Laiou, Angeliki E., ed. (2002). The Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century. Washington, District of Columbia: Dumbarton Oaks. ISBN 0-88402-288-9.
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