Solidus of Honorius
- Object Name
- Solidus of Honorius
- Culture / Site
- Milan, Italy
- Medium
- Gold
- Date
- 395/400
- Dimensions
- Diameter 1.23 cm
- Credit Line
- Musée archéologique de Rabat, Morocco, 24.3. Photograph by Fouad Mahdaoui
- Section
- Driving Desires
- Description
The origins of trans-Saharan gold trade likely date to the fourth century CE. Roman outposts in North Africa were well positioned to undertake this trade and to disseminate gold and other commodities into the wider Roman world. The first gold solidus coin, featuring a portrait of the emperor Honorius in profile, was issued by the Roman Empire in 312 and weighed 4.5 grams. The measure and its increments became standard units for weighing gold wherever Roman coins were used, and they continued to be used by Islamic states in North Africa and the Middle East during the Middle Ages. It is possible that this system was also transferred via trans-Saharan trade to West Africa, where it was used in the nineteenth-century gold weights in the Akan region of Ghana.