Wednesday 28 September 2011

The origin of the word “money”

On the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome visible today in the way Michelangelo arranged it, it was built the temple of Juno Moneta (from the latin verb monere meaning "to warn" - the warning Juno). This temple was built in the IV century BC and later on close to it the romans built the mint of Rome (where the coins were made). Since the mint was constructed near the temple of Juno Moneta, what the mint was producing (the coins) was started to be called moneta. Still today the coins keep this name in many languages aside from italian. For example: money in english, monnaie in french, moneda in spanish and romanian, moeda in portuguese etc.