The Carat of The Romans and Greeks
The solidus was also a Roman weight unit. There is literary evidence that the weight of 72 coins of the type called solidus was exactly 1 Roman pound, and that the weight of 1 solidus was 24 siliquae. The weight of a Roman pound is generally believed to have been 327.45 g or possibly up to 5 g less. Therefore, the metric equivalent of 1 siliqua was approximately 189 mg. The Greeks had a similar unit of the same value.
Gold fineness in carats comes from carats and grains of gold in a solidus of coin. One solidus = 24 carats, 1 carat = 4 grains, is preserved right up to this day. Woolhouse's Measures, Weights and Moneys of all Nations gives gold fineness in carats of 4 grains, and silver in (pound) of 12 ounces each 20 dwt.
Read more about this topic: Carat (mass)
Famous quotes containing the words carat, romans and/or greeks:
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues made them great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Could truth perhaps be a woman who has reasons for not permitting her reasons to be seen? Could her name perhaps be—to speak Greek—Baubo?... Oh, those Greeks! They understood how to live: to do that it is necessary to stop bravely at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore the appearance, to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those Greeks were superficial—out of profundity!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)