Aureus

The aureus ( aurei in the plural) or sum of money of gold is a Roman Monnaie of Or being worth 25  sums of money of money, is 100  Sesterce S. Its emission becomes regular starting from Jules César (Ier front century J. - C.), and continues under the Roman Empire until its replacement at the beginning of the 4th century by the solidus. The aureus has the same size roughly as the sum of money, but it is heavier than this last, because the density of gold is higher than that of the money.

The term aureus is at the origin of the Danish word øre , indicating the monetary subdivisions of the crowns Danish, féringienne, Norwegian and Swedish.

History

the delivers indicates here the Roman measuring unit equivalent with 327,368  grams.

César makes the striking of aureus more regular and imposes in particular a standard weight are equivalent to 1/40ème of delivers, that is to say approximately 8,16  Gram S. This part, made up of pure gold without alloy, is called the aureus nummus .

Auguste is reserved, thereafter, the striking of the invaluable species of which the aureus, which weighed 1/42ème delivers gold (either 7,79  G) and is worth 25  sums of money.

Nevertheless, the successors of Auguste have recourse to a form of Inflation, which consists in reducing either the weight of the parts, or their title (percentage of gold), or sometimes by cumulating the two practices.

Thus, the mass of the aureus will decrease with 1/45ème of delivers.

During the 3rd century, the gold coins are introduced in various forms and weight, which makes difficult to determine the gold coin exactly, standard of the time.

Aurélien removes in 274 the senatorial prerogatives as regards emissions of currencies of Bronze and wants to restore the system of Caracalla. It then sets up a aureus at 6,45  grams and creates a Antoninianus or Aurelianus with 3,80  grams.

Under the reign of Dioclétien, the aureus weighs approximately 1/60ème delivers