Imagine where this coin might have journeyed before it was hidden away for the centuries. Perhaps it paid a tithe in Alexandria, or was passed hand to hand in Constantinople, the seat of the Byzantine Empire. It might have purchased goods in the markets of Jerusalem, or paid passage on a ship bound for Carthage. However it has come down to us, this follis coin evokes the splendor of its age, the time when the Classical world was giving way to the medieval one. To wear it is to touch directly upon the vanished glories of the past.