My second ancient gold coin: a solidus of Honorius, from Ravenna

I'm pretty sure that the solidus was known for retaining its purity, and its weight of 1/72 of a pound, for hundreds of years. Hence its international popularity. Wikipedia isn't necessarily reliable, of course, but says "In theory, the solidus was struck from pure gold, but because of the limits of refining techniques, in practice - the coins were often about 23k fine (95.8% gold)."

 

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That is not surprising. Solidi did not circulate in the same way as silver and bronze coins. Solidi were used for large scale transactions, to pay taxes or (foreign) troops and of course to store wealth. Solidi paid in taxes were regularly molten down and recoined to minimize the scope for abuse.