Which Roman king issued the gold coin solidus?
Michael Gray
Updated on April 07, 2026
Roman coinage. The solidus was introduced by Diocletian in AD 301 as a replacement of the aureus, composed of relatively solid gold, minted 60 to the Roman pound.
What is 1 Roman gold coin worth?
An 8.18-gram Roman gold aureus from the time of Julius Caesar (died 44 BCE) would contain gold worth $330.50. The spot price of silver is $14.22 per Troy ounce.
What is solidus and denarius?
A solidus (plural solidii) was a gold Roman coin from a later period than the denarius. So he introduced a new system in AD 755 based on a new silver denarius which weighed one 240th of a pound of silver. So there was a link between pounds in money and pounds in weight. He kept a link with the old currency also.
What is a Roman coin called?
denarius aureus
Aureus, basic gold monetary unit of ancient Rome and the Roman world. It was first named nummus aureus (“gold money”), or denarius aureus, and was equal to 25 silver denarii; a denarius equaled 10 bronze asses.
How much does a Roman gold coin weigh?
about 4.5 grams
The solidus was reintroduced by Constantine I (r. 306–337) in 312 AD, permanently replacing the aureus as the gold coin of the Roman Empire. The solidus was struck at a rate of 72 to a Roman pound of pure gold, each coin weighing twenty-four Greco-Roman carats, or about 4.5 grams of gold per coin.
What were Roman gold coins called?
What was the value of a Roman silver coin?
The term has been applied in modern times to various silver coins on the premise that the coins were valued at 1/24 of the gold solidus (which weighed 1/72 of a Roman pound) and therefore represented a siliqua of gold in value.
How much gold was in Constantine’s solidus coin?
Constantine’s solidus was struck at a rate of 72 to a Roman pound (of about 326.6 g) of pure gold; each coin weighed 24 Greco-Roman carats (189 mg each), or about 4.5 grams of gold per coin.
What kind of gold was the Roman solidus made out of?
In theory the solidus was struck from pure gold, but because of the limits of refining techniques, in practice the coins were often about 23k fine (95.8% gold). In the Greek-speaking world during the Roman period, and then in the Byzantine economy, the solidus was known as the νόμισμα nomisma (plural nomismata ).
What was the weight of a Roman siliqua coin?
The siliqua is the modern name given (without any ancient evidence to confirm the designation) to small, thin, Roman silver coins produced in the 4th century A.D. and later. When the coins were in circulation, the Latin word siliqua was a unit of weight defined by one late Roman writer as one twenty-fourth of the weight of a Roman solidus.