“What do you mean?”
“Well, I have some bezants, and you have some dirhams. Put them beside each other.”
There was no need for further discussion. The portrait of the basileus of the Romans was on the bezant, and the bezant was the much more valuable coin.
I, myself, had an experience which proves the same thing. On my desk in front of me is a real Byzantine gold piece. It was coined in the reign of Basil I and his son Constantine, and cannot be a day less than 1,090 years old. But I was able to buy it at a price that I could afford. I asked the coin dealer why.
“Bezants were used all over the world, and so you find them everywhere!” he answered.
Because the Byzantine emperors made their gold coins so stable in value that everybody wanted them, I am able to own one today!
THE BYZANTINE
WAY OF LIFE
What did the Byzantine Empire do for itself, and for the world, and even for us, during the eleven long centuries when it was almost always—but not always—so rich and powerful?
You would not really know about the Byzantines unless you had the answer.