Ancient coins can't play music, but they show us what the ancient world sounded like. From Apollo's lyre and the great kithara of the Chalkidian League to Ne...

Long before modern stadiums, sport was minted in silver. From the wrestlers of Aspendos to the racing chariots of Syracuse and the festival crowns of Roman p...

The gladiator is the ultimate symbol of Rome, and some of that world survives on coins: two fighters on a Republican denarius, a venatio of lion and tiger, t...

When people imagine money from the time of Jesus, they picture one famous coin. But first-century Judaea was an entire monetary ecosystem, tiny bronze prutot...

Thirty pieces of silver, one of history's most famous sums. But the Gospel never names the coin. Roman denarii? Antiochene silver? The evidence points to one...

When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, it froze a living Roman economy. From a fugitive's purse of 20 denarii to the 1,000-gold-aureus Boscoreale hoard, here is the...

Did Spartacus have coins? No coin bears his name, but the money of his world survives, Roman denarii from the revolt years, the Aquillius slave-war denarius,...

A funny, historically grounded quiz — 10 scenarios to find out if you'd have survived (or ruled) ancient Rome.

10 questions to test your real knowledge of ancient coins — from beginner basics to details only serious collectors know.

Answer 10 questions and discover the corner of the ancient world you'd have the most fun collecting.

Answer 10 questions and discover which Roman emperor you'd have been — then shop the real coin from their reign.

Dalmatius was Constantine the Great’s nephew and a Roman Caesar for barely two years before he was killed in the violent dynastic purge of AD 337. Learn who ...

Explore the silver quinarii of 1st-century BC Gaul: Celtic coin designs, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Vercingetorix, and how to collect authentic Gallic silver with...

Why did Celtic and eastern European communities imitate Macedonian tetradrachms? Explore Philip III-type silver, Herakles and Zeus, lower Danube coinage, cha...

Who was Erzsébet Báthory, and how much of the Blood Countess story is history rather than legend? Explore the 1610 investigation, the later blood-bathing myt...

Who was Julia Domna? Explore the Emesene-born wife of Septimius Severus, mother of Caracalla and Geta, her title Mater Castrorum, intellectual patronage, ext...

Who was Carinus? Explore the last emperor of the dynasty of Carus, his struggle with Diocletian, the disputed Battle of the Margus in AD 285, hostile ancient...

What is a Byzantine coin weight? Explore the bronze weights used to check gold nomismata and solidi, how six nomismata related to the Roman ounce, why standa...

What were the coins of Cales? Explore the Campanian city’s silver didrachms of c. 265–240 BC, their Athena and racing-biga imagery, the Latin colony founded ...

Who was Faustina the Younger? Explore the daughter of Antoninus Pius and Faustina I, wife of Marcus Aurelius, mother of Commodus, her unusually extensive Rom...

Who was Faustina the Elder? Explore the wife of Antoninus Pius, her short time as Augusta, her enormous posthumous coinage, the Temple of Faustina and why he...

What were Brundisium coins? Explore the c. 215 BC bronze sextans of Rome's Adriatic port, its Poseidon and dolphin-rider imagery, Second Punic War context an...

What is a Byzantine lead seal? Discover how lead bullae authenticated documents, what names, titles and Christian images reveal, how sigillography reconstruc...

Who was Salonina? Explore the empress of Gallienus through her antoniniani, the capture of Valerian, the deaths of imperial heirs, the Gallic breakaway state...