Gold and Empire — The Gold That Moved the Ancient World

Gold, which had adorned temples as the flesh of the gods, began at a certain point to take on an entirely different meaning in human hands. It became the center of a strange agreement: that no matter whose hands it passed into, its value did not change. Gold, which does not rust, whose quantity can be measured, and which keeps its value even when beaten thin, was the finest possible ‘measuring stick’ for a world in which things are exchanged for things. In time gold ceased to be a king’s ornament and became the blood that moved empires. The ancient world began to turn the vast gears of trade, conquest, and power around this yellow metal.

Lydia — The Moment Gold Became ‘Money’

The setting often spoken of for gold’s transformation into currency is the ancient kingdom of Lydia in Anatolia, in what is now Turkey. It is told that this land held a rich terrain where gold could be gathered naturally from river sand. What people there used was a natural alloy in which gold and silver were mingled: electrum. This name, meaning amber in Greek, is said to come from the pale yellow shine of the alloy resembling the color of amber.

The people of Lydia, around the 6th century BCE, are said to have begun shaping this electrum into pieces of fixed weight and form and stamping them with seals. This is known as one of the oldest cast coinage in the world. Until then, every transaction required placing a lump of metal on the scales to weigh it and confirm its value. But if a stamp guaranteeing the weight in advance was pressed onto it, people could accept its value on trust without weighing it each time. Gold went from something weighed to something counted — a quiet but decisive turning point in the history of economics.

Furthermore, King Croesus of Lydia, around the mid-6th century BCE, is said to have established a system of gold and silver coins of regulated purity in place of the electrum alloy. Croesus was known for his immense wealth, so much so that the phrase ‘rich as Croesus’ survived to later ages. Gold itself became a mirror reflecting the king’s power and the prosperity of his realm. Lydia’s experiment became one starting point in the long history of binding gold to power.

Rome — The Gold Coin That Became the Empire’s Blood

What inherited the fire Lydia had lit, on an enormous scale, was Rome. For this nation, which gathered the Mediterranean world into one, the trade linking its vast territories and the means of supporting armies deployed across many regions were challenges that decided the fate of the state. What gained weight there was reliable coinage. Among these, the gold coin called the aureus came to symbolize Rome’s wealth and authority.

Rome’s coinage system was put in order amid the upheaval of the shift from republic to empire. Through the age of Julius Caesar and then under Augustus, said to be the first emperor, the relations between the values of coins such as the gold aureus and the silver denarius are said to have been organized. In ages of continuing civil war, the value of gold and coin flowing in as spoils of war wavered and unsettled people. Maintaining stable coinage was, for an emperor, a tool of rule as weighty as the sword.

The aureus often bore the profile of the emperor. The same face stamped onto gold coins reached every corner of the vast empire. This not only smoothed commerce but was also a device that quietly told, in people’s very hands, who ruled this place. Gold was wealth and, at the same time, the language of power. In time, if the quality of the gold coin wavered, it was received as the wavering of the empire itself. The shine of gold and the prestige of empire were inseparably bound together.

The power the gold coin brought reached beyond the empire as well. Rome is said to have often used gold and silver coins for trade with the East, with India, and with lands still more distant. In search of luxuries such as spices and silk, gold flowed out of the country. This was a symbol of wealth and, at the same time, an indicator reflecting where the empire’s riches were headed. Gold spoke of authority within the country and built bridges of trade beyond it. There were few ages in which a single gold coin bore so many roles upon itself.

The Empire That Tore Down Mountains in Search of Gold

An empire that needed gold this much naturally sought to obtain still more of the gold itself. Rome searched for gold in every region it conquered and poured the strength of the state into its extraction. Among the best known is Las Medulas, which remains in what is now northwestern Spain. Here, from around the 1st century BCE when the area came under Roman rule, large-scale gold mining is said to have been carried out.

The method was astonishing even to modern eyes. Channels and reservoirs were built above the mountain, and great volumes of water were poured into the mountain all at once, collapsing its interior while washing out the earth and sand bearing gold. This technique of collapsing a mountain with the force of water is said to have been called ‘mountain-breaking’ in later ages. It is also said that the people of conquered lands were mobilized for the labor. The reddish-brown cliff-like landscape that remains here today was not made by nature but is the trace of human hands that gouged the mountain away in search of gold.

For an empire to control gold mines was to grasp the source of wealth, and that was, just so, to grasp the source of power. Land that yielded gold became a target of conquest and a seed of conflict. Gold, which should have been offered to the gods, had now turned into a strategic resource that the state would tear down whole mountains to obtain. From the metal of the gods to the metal that moved empires — the meaning of gold transformed greatly within the ancient world.

Thus gold transformed from the metal of the gods into the currency of empires, enriching trade, reflecting power, and at times stirring a thirst great enough to tear down mountains. Even as Rome declined and Europe walked through a long span of time, the longing for gold did not vanish. Rather, people’s dreams swelled with the thought that, far beyond reach, there might lie an as-yet-unseen mountain of gold. Over a land of gold said to sleep beyond the seas, humanity would in time raise its sails toward an unknown continent.