The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 A CLOSER LOOK AT GOLD 537of 4.66 grams to 4.71 grams, withfracional pieces in a close proportion.7 Other very importantearly series of electrum coinswere those of .Kyzikos in Mysia(started before 550 B.C.), Mytileneon the island of Lesbos (ca.500 B.C. ff.) and Phokaia in Ionia(started before 500 B.C.). Theseearly gold series consisted of electrum,a more or less natural mixtureof gold and silver, such aswas mined in what is now westernTurkey. Later on, more sophisticatedrefining methods wereused to prepare the planchets. Thehuge gold coinages of the kingsof Macedonia, Philip II (359-336B.C.) and Alexander the Great(336-323 B.C.), are notable for thefact that they consisted of nearlypure gold, with specific gravitiesranging around 19 (pure gold:19.3 times the weight- of water).By the time the autonomy of theGreek states had been extinguishedby the expanding Roman Empire,no less than fifty of them hadstruck.gold coins.The Roman Republic and subsequentlythe Roman Empire hadas a gold unit the aureus, whichwas first struck in quantity7 An excellent source for the metrologicalaspects of the earliest electrumcoinage, including the specific gravitiesof many specimens, is the catalogue ofthe holdings of the Boston Museum ofFine Arts published by Agnes Brett in1955.around 46 B.C. At that time ithad' a weight of 1/40 of a Romanpound (8.19 g). Its high puritypersisted hut its weight graduallysank over a period of nearly fourcenturies.The SolidusThe next great gold series, thesolidus, got its start in the earlyfourth century under Constantinethe Great (reigned 306-337 A.D.).The solidus was one of the mostremarkable and enduring of allgold coins. Its weight and finenesswere maintained with only occasionalvariations for over sevencenturies, in spite of all the military,economic and political vicissitudesof the late Roman Empireand its continuation in the east(the "Byzantine" Empire). Duringthis very long period the solidushad little competition in ~heworld except for the gold of theIslamic dynasties which originallystarted as imitations of the Byzantinesolidus during the seventhcentury. The Ostrogoths in Italyalso imitated the solidus in greatquantities during the fifth andsixth centuries, but unlike the Islamicimitations, the Ostrogothicsolidi bore the name and portraitsof the Byzantine emperor and canbe distinguished from the Byzantinepieces only· by subtle stylisticdifferences. So familiar was theworld with the solidus that we