Semissis
The semissis was a Roman denomination of coins and means half piece. This term is documented for the first time from the time of Emperor Severus Alexander as a half-piece of the aureus .
From the time of Emperor Constantine I , the semissis was in use together with the solidus , the standard gold coin of the Roman Empire from 309. It was first minted in Rome in 312 by Constantine the Great. The standard weight of the Semissis was officially half the solidus and thus 2.25 g. In fact, most Semisses weigh a little less (2.0 to 2.1 g). The Semissis was coined in the Roman successor to the Byzantine Empire until the 9th century. The last known Semisses were minted under Emperor Basil I. The average diameter of the semissis is 18 mm.
More often than the semissis, however, the tremissis (plural: tremisses) were coined, which weighed a third of the solidus .
The Semissis usually shows busts of the emperors on its front and a portrait of Victoria on the back , and in Byzantine times a cross on a ball.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Andreas Urs Sommer , The Coins of the Byzantine Empire 491-1453. With an appendix: The coins of the kingdom of Trebizond. Regenstauf: Battenberg Verlag, 2010, page 15
literature
- Ursula Kampmann, The coins of the Roman Empire, Battenberg Verlag Regenstauf, 1st edition 2004, ISBN 3-89441-549-5
- Andreas Urs Sommer , The coins of the Byzantine Empire 491-1453. With an appendix: The coins of the kingdom of Trebizond. 534 pages. Regenstauf: Battenberg Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86646-061-4
- Philip Grierson , Mark Blackburn : Medieval European Coinage, Volume 1. The Early Middle Ages (5th – 10th Centuries), July 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-03177-6 .
- David R. Sear, Byzantine Coins and Their Values, 1987, ISBN 978-0900652714