Gold stater

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alexander the Great’s principal numismatic achievement was to put into circulation the huge mass of precious metals seized in the Achaemenid palaces when he conquered the Persian Empire. The booty he took, mainly from the great treasuries of Susa and Persepolis, represented the equivalent of 468 tons of gold or 4,580 tons of silver. In many cases, Alexander used the facilities of existing mints to issue his own coinage.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art