197, Lot: 166. Estimate $150. Sold for $90. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Honorius & Theodosius. AD 408-423. Æ Exagium Solidi Weight (22mm, 3.81 g, 12h). DDNNA[AVVG]G, diademed and draped facing busts; cross between / [E]XAG[IVM] SOLIDI, Moneta standing left, holding scales and cornucopia; [CON]S(?) in exergue. Bendall, Weights 12 var. (cross between heads). Good Fine, dark green patina, some roughness, holed.

During the later Roman Empire, coin weights began appearing with the legend exagium solidi, a phrase which has often been translated as “the weight (or weighing) of a solidus”, in order to deal with the practice of clipping. Exagium derives from the Latin exigere (lit. “to drive out”). However, extant examples of these weights vary and some weigh much less than the 4.5 g of a full-weight solidus. These lighter weights are thought to possibly represent the lowest acceptable weight for aurei, and were used by the exauctores auri to withdraw under-weight solidi from circulation and thereby maintain an acceptable weight standard minimum for solidi to circulate at full value.