Solidus
νόμισμα
Solidus (νόμισμα). The aurei or gold coins issued by the Roman emperors underwent from the time of Nero onwards a gradual but irregular reduction in weight, until they practically ceased to be a measure of value, and gold coin went only by weight. To remedy this state of things, Constantine introduced a new gold coinage, of which the pieces weighed 1/72 of a Roman libra, about 70 English grains. The importance of this issue and its gradually debased successors is shown by the use in our own time of soldo, sou, and cognate terms.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.