CHAPTER XII. The Greek System.

We have now traced the origin of Roman currency sufficiently for the purposes of this work. After various fluctuations in the weight of the gold pieces under Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar and others, Constantine the Great finally fixed the weight of the aureus or solidus at 4 scruples in 312 A.D., and so it remained until the final downfall of the Empire of the East in 1453. From this famous coin the various mintages of mediaeval and consequently of modern Europe may be said to trace their pedigrees. The solidus was divided into thirds or tremisses , for the scrupular system had been abandoned, the solidus being regarded simply as a sextula or one-sixth of the uncia , and not as a multiple of the scruple . The tremissis therefore weighed 24 grs. Troy, or 32 wheat grains. When the barbarian conquerors of the Roman Empire began to coin silver they took as their model the gold tremissis . In the earliest stage of the Anglo-Saxon mintage we find so-called gold pennies of 24 grs. occasionally appearing. These are nothing else than