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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Pavlos, post: 7310343, member: 96635&quot;]I have no experience regarding Roman coinage, but I do regarding Greek coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gold was mostly used for mercantile transactions, payment of government expenses (mercenaries, tribute and such), and donatives, either for services rendered to individuals or the state, or to religious foundations.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even silver coinage (except the early tiny fractions such as the tetartemorion) were too much valued for buying a loaf of bread for example. Note that a drachm would purchase a month’s supply of Barley for an individual and two drachms about a month’s supply of wheat.</p><p>A single solder was paid around 4-5 tetradrachms per month (regular wage), this is excluding <i>Sitarchia</i> (provision money), which was another 4-5 tetradrachms per month.</p><p><br /></p><p>A gold stater was worth around 5 tetradrachms or 25 drachms. So I am not surprised the average soldier, especially the solders in the service of Alexander the great were in possession of gold. I remember reading a part about a veteran from Alexander the great his army who came back into the Aegean from his long campaign and received 9000 or 10.000 silver drachms as payback and a talent bonus (~6000 drachms). We are talking here about 400 gold staters!</p><p>Another veteran was living in Kolophon with his huge pension and donated a massive amount of these drachms to build a new city wall.</p><p><br /></p><p>We are talking about these staters:</p><p><img src="https://images4-cdn.auctionmobility.com/is3/auctionmobility-static4/ciGM-4-N10R//103_1.jpg?maxwidth=1600&amp;maxheight=1600" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>Courtesy of <a href="https://auctions.cngcoins.com/lots/view/4-QVT7U/kings-of-macedon-temp-alexander-iii-philip-iii-circa-33025-320-bc-av-stater-18mm-858-g-1h-in-the-name-of-alexander-iii-uncertain-mint-in-western-asia-minor" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://auctions.cngcoins.com/lots/view/4-QVT7U/kings-of-macedon-temp-alexander-iii-philip-iii-circa-33025-320-bc-av-stater-18mm-858-g-1h-in-the-name-of-alexander-iii-uncertain-mint-in-western-asia-minor" rel="nofollow">CNG</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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