Solidus - Gregory in the name of Justinian II

Romuald II of Benevento died in 732, leaving the duchy in the hands of a succession of short-lived rulers while the Lombard south struggled to define itself against both Byzantine authority and Frankish pressure from the north. These electrum solidi — debased imitations of Byzantine gold — were struck under Gregory, a figure whose precise status within Benevento's tangled succession remains disputed, invoking Justinian II's name long after that emperor had been deposed and executed in 711. The anachronism was deliberate: Byzantine imperial titulature still conferred legitimacy in southern Italy regardless of who actually held Constantinople.