not just minted
Collector guides, emperor profiles, coin histories, and everything you need to go deeper into the ancient world.
The Athenian owl was the closest thing the ancient world had to an international currency. But the owl did not stop at the Golden Age. Follow it through the ...
A Byzantine emperor on one coin. A Hellenistic king copied 1,300 years after his portrait was first cut. Gemini and the zodiac on another. The Artuqids of Ma...
Their name comes from the Greek word for wreath, and the wreath is what sets them apart: broad silver tetradrachms from the cities of Hellenistic Asia Minor,...
For nearly a century the Hasmoneans ruled an independent Judaea. Mattathias Antigonus was the last of them, a king and high priest who seized Jerusalem with ...
If Roman coinage is a family tree, Greek coinage is an entire world: hundreds of city-states, kingdoms, and colonies, each striking its own money. But beneat...
Roman coinage did not end in AD 476. In the East, the empire and its money continued for nearly another thousand years. Byzantine coins can look confusing at...
Asses, sestertii, denarii, antoniniani, folles, solidi: Roman coinage can feel like a foreign language. But it gets simple once you follow it in order. This ...
Late Antiquity · History When Rome Fell, Its Coins Lived On The Successor Kingdoms That Inherited a Living Roman World, and the Coins That Bridge Antiq...
Every Roman emperor had rivals, and Roman history is filled with the men who tried to take the throne by force. Some founded breakaway empires that lasted ye...
He was the son of Constantine the Great, yet history remembers Constantius II less as a conqueror than as the emperor who simply held the line. His reign pro...
Most Roman coins celebrated emperors and armies. One series told a story instead. Struck at Alexandria under Antoninus Pius beginning around AD 148, the Labo...
Most Roman coins celebrated war, virtue, and the gods. One series looked to the stars instead. Struck at Alexandria around AD 144, the zodiac drachms of Anto...
Most Roman Republican coins celebrate war, ancestry, and ambition. One series did the opposite. Struck around 66 BC by Quintus Pomponius Musa, this remarkabl...
The world of Athens, Sparta, and Alexander the Great is closer than you think. You can own authentic coins that circulated among the philosophers, generals, ...
Most people assume ancient coins belong behind museum glass or at high-end auctions. The truth is the opposite. Authentic Roman bronzes, Widow's Mites, and e...
The Peloponnesian War, Alexander's conquests, Hannibal, Caesar, the fall of Jerusalem, and the collapse of Rome. Ten of the most important wars in ancient hi...
A soldier from the provinces who rose to end Rome's civil wars, found the Flavian dynasty, and begin the Colosseum. The story of Vespasian and the rich coina...
Raised to power by the Rhine legions and destroyed by Vespasian's, Vitellius held Rome for eight months before the Flavians took everything. The story of the...
Ninety-five days on the throne, and the emperor who chose the welfare of Rome over his own survival. The story of Otho, a former companion of Nero, and the s...
Seven months on the throne, and the moment Rome learned that armies, not bloodlines, would decide who ruled. The story of Galba, the first emperor of the Yea...
Ancient coin collecting is called "The Hobby of Kings," but some of those kings were literally collecting other kings: coins bearing the portraits of Julius ...
Coin collecting has carried the nickname "The Hobby of Kings" for generations. But where did that reputation come from? This article traces the origins of an...
Father's Day is approaching, and you may be wondering what to get the man who insists he doesn't need anything. Before you send another gift card, consider s...
Athens struck coins that circulated throughout the Mediterranean. Corinth, Corinth minted for centuries. Even small Greek cities produced civic coinage as po...
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