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

 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 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. 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. 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

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