Note 60 — Chapter IV · THE EARLY FRANKS

"The monetary system of the Salic law was taken from the Romans. The basis was the gold solidus of Constantine, 1/72 of a pound of gold. The small coin was the silver denarius, forty of which made a solidus. This system was adopted as a monetary reform by Clovis, and the statement of the sum in terms of both coins is probably due to the newness of the system at the time of the appearance of the law."—Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book for Mediæval History, p. 17. The gold solidus was worth somewhere from two and a half to three dollars, but its purchasing power was perhaps equal to that of twenty dollars to-day, because gold and silver were then so much scarcer and more valuable. Such estimates of purchasing power, however, involve so great uncertainty as to be practically worthless.