Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/146

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The Byzantine coinage, which has been recast by Anastasius, consists of gold, silver, and copper. The standard gold coin, the aureus or solidus, subdivides the pound^[1] of gold into seventy-two equal parts, and is, therefore, to be valued at nearly twelve English shillings. Halves and thirds of the aureus are regularly minted for circulation. There is also a silver solidus which weighs nearly fifteen times as much as that of gold.^[2] Twelfths, twenty-fourths, and forty-eighths of this coin are issued; they are named the milliaresion, the siliqua, and the half-siliqua respectively. In the copper coinage at the head of the list stands the follis, two hundred and ten of which are contained in the solidus.^[3] Hence the milliaresion is not much less in value than a shilling, whilst the follis represents but little more than a halfpenny. Yet the follis is divided hypothetically into forty nummia, but pieces of five nummia are the smallest coins in

[Footnote: De Luxu, Moribus, etc., Aevi Theod., 1794. An article in the Quarterly

Review, vol. lxxviii, deals briefly with the same materials. I have derived assistance from all three, but, as a rule, my instances are taken directly from the text of Chrysostom.]

↑ Twelve ounces, rather less than the English ounce. The difficulty in obtaining a just equivalent for ancient money in modern values is almost insuperable. After various researches I have decided, as the safest approximation, to reckon the solidus at 11s. 2d. and the lb. Byz. of gold at £40.
↑ This appears to have been merely a "coin of account," but there were at one time large silver coins, value, perhaps, about six shillings, also pieces of alloyed silver. For some reason all these were called in and made obsolete at the beginning of the fifth century; Cod. Theod., IX, xxi, xxii, xxiii. No silver coins larger than a shilling seem to have been preserved to our time.
↑ As the price of copper was fixed at 25 lb. for a solidus, these coins might have been very bulky; "dumps," as such are called by English sailors abroad, above an ounce in weight, but nothing near so heavy has come down to us; Cod. Theod., XI, xxi.

[1] Twelve ounces, rather less than the English ounce. The difficulty in obtaining a just equivalent for ancient money in modern values is almost insuperable. After various researches I have decided, as the safest approximation, to reckon the solidus at 11s. 2d. and the lb. Byz. of gold at £40.

[2] This appears to have been merely a "coin of account," but there were at one time large silver coins, value, perhaps, about six shillings, also pieces of alloyed silver. For some reason all these were called in and made obsolete at the beginning of the fifth century; Cod. Theod., IX, xxi, xxii, xxiii. No silver coins larger than a shilling seem to have been preserved to our time.

[3] As the price of copper was fixed at 25 lb. for a solidus, these coins might have been very bulky; "dumps," as such are called by English sailors abroad, above an ounce in weight, but nothing near so heavy has come down to us; Cod. Theod., XI, xxi.

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