Roman coins are among the most collected issues from ancient times. While the city of Rome was established in the 8th century BC, it did not mint its own coins for the first 500 years of its existence. Like other cities in central Italy, it instead employed aes rude, or irregular cast copper lumps.

This changed in the 4th century BC, as the city began trading in earnest with Greek colonies in southern Italy, such as Hyria, Nola, and Naples, that maintained mints and produced silver didrachms. Rome produced its first cast copper coins in 269 BC, and from 211 BC onward, all coinage was struck.

The first gold Roman coins were issued around 218 BC, following Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps, which launched the Second Punic War. During this time, immense quantities of silver coinage were struck as a way of financing war efforts. The primary coin was the quadrigatus, a reduced-weight didrachm that got its name from a four-horse chariot carrying Jupiter and Victory. Even lighter and more plentiful, the silver denarius quickly became the major currency of the western and central Mediterranean. While it was intermittently struck, gold coinage was not regularly produced within the Roman monetary system until the reign of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, from 27 BC to 14 AD.