Metallic coins

Europeans were among the first to develop standardized and certified metallic coins. The Greeks introduced silver coins around 700 B. C.; Aegina (595 B. C.), Athens (575 B. C.), and Corinth (570 B. C.) were the first Greek city-states to mint their own coins. The silver content of the Athenian drachma, famous for depicting the legendary owl, remained stable for nearly 400 years. Greek coins were therefore widely used (their use was further spread by Alexander the Great), and have been found by archaeologists in a geographical area ranging from Spain to modern India. The Romans, who had previously used cumbersome bronze bars called assignatum as money, adopted the Greek innovation of using official coins and were the first to introduce a bi-metal scheme using both the silver denarius and the gold aureus. Under the Emperor Nero in the first century A. D., the precious metal content of the coins started to diminish as the imperial mints increasingly substituted gold and silver for alloy in order to finance the Empire’s gigantic deficit. With the intrinsic value of the coins declining, the prices of goods and services began to rise. This was followed by a general rise in prices that may have contributed to the downfall of the Western Roman Empire. The more stable Eastern Roman solidus, introduced by Constantine the Great in the fourth century A. D., was maintained at its original weight and precious metal content until the middle of the 11th century, thus gaining a reputation that made it the most important coinage for international trade for over five centuries. Byzantine Greek coins were used as international money and were found by archaeologists as far away as Altai in Mongolia.

In the mid-11th century, however, the Byzantine monetary economy collapsed and was replaced by a new system which lasted throughout the 12th century, until the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204 eventually ended the history of Greco-Roman coinage. The Greeks and Romans had spread the custom of using coins and the technical knowledge of how to strike them over a vast geographical area. For most of the Middle Ages locally minted gold and silver coins were the dominant means of payment, although copper coins were increasingly being used. In 793 A. D. Charlemagne reformed and standardized the Frankish monetary system, introducing a monetary standard according to which one Frankish silver pound (408g) equaled 20 shillings or 240 pence – this standard remained valid in the United Kingdom and Ireland until 1971. After the fall of Constantinople, the Italian merchant city-states of Genoa and Florence introduced gold coinage in 1252 with the genoin of Genoa and the fiorina (or florin) of Florence. In the 15th century their place was taken by the ducato of Venice.