Compiled by Alexander James in December of 2010 & Revived by LOR in June of 2025
The origin of the word "money" comes from the Latin word "moneta", which comes from the temple of Hera Moneta where the Roman money came from in the early days of Rome.
In Greek language, "Hera Mone tas" means the lonely Hera ("Mone tas" in Doric Greek, "Mone tes" in Ionic dialect).
In ancient mythology, Zeus punished Hera and tied her with a golden chain between earth and sky.
Hera, being alone between sky and earth tied with gold, was called moneres or mone (µόνη) which means lonely, and this is where the word money comes from.
Hera, with the help of Hephaestus, broke the golden chain and released herself.
It is said that all gold found on earth (which forms approximately a single cube 20 m a side) originates from the fragments of this golden chain, which fell from the sky and became human's mone(y).
Maybe due to this fable, gold was used in ancient Greece only in temples, graves and jewels, and there was not any ancient Greek golden coin until around 390 BC, when the Greek king Philip II of Macedon coined golden coins.
Bust of Philip II, Roman copy from a Greek original, from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
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View full-sizeDownload Philip II of Macedon (Ancient Greek: Φίλιππος, romanized: Phílippos; 382 BC – October 336 BC) was the king (basileus) of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty, founders of the ancient kingdom, and the father of Alexander the Great.
The first golden coins in history were coined by Lydian king Croesus around 560 BC.
The first Greek coins were made initially of copper, then of iron and this is because copper and iron were powerful materials used to make weapons.
Pheidon king of Argos, around 700 BC, changed the coins from iron to a rather useless and ornamental metal, silver, and, according to Aristotle, dedicated some of the remaining iron coins (which were actually iron sticks) to the temple of Hera.
King Pheidon coined the silver coins at Aegina, at the temple of the goddess of wisdom and war Athena the Aphaia (the vanisher), and engraved the coins with a Chelone, which is used until nowadays as a symbol of capitalism.
Chelone coins were the first medium of exchange that was not backed by a real value good.
They were widely accepted and used as the international medium of exchange until the days of Peloponnesian War when the Athenian Drachma replaced them.
According to other fables, inventors of money were:
Demodike (or Hermodike) of Kyme (the wife of Midas)
Lycus (son of Pandion II and ancestor of the Lycians)
The word money in Greek language is not µόνη (money), it is νόµισµα (nomisma or numisma) which derives from the word νοµίζω (nomizo=putative, I think so, I suppose so) and from the word νόµος (nomos=law).
So numisma gives the exact meaning and definition of mone(y).
It is something we think has value, or something that someone convinced us it has, but in reality, it has not.
Also, in case we are not convinced that mone(y) has value and we do not recognize the mone(y) making authority, mone(y) is enforced by law for use as the unique medium of exchange in trades.
In case an individual or a community refuse to accept mone(y) as the unique medium of exchange, then the powerful mone(y) maker authority, using its monopoly on violence and enforced taxation, steals the real value goods (home, food, transport, energy, labor) that the individual or the community owns.
That’s why many individuals or communities hide their goods from mone(y)-making authorities.
The crime of hiding goods from a mone(y)-making authority is called tax evasion.
One of the words for money in the Hebrew language is mammon.
Mammon does have more than one meaning depending on its linguistic and etymological contexts.
The Bible gives the word “mammon” a broader context in terms of its:
socioeconomic
cultural
theological
usages.
Mammon, a word of Aramaic origin, means "riches", but has an unclear etymology; scholars have suggested connections with a word meaning "entrusted", or with the Hebrew word "matmon", meaning "treasure".
It is also used in Hebrew as a word for "money" - .ןוממ .
The Greek word for "Mammon", mamonas, occurs in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew vi 24) and in the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke xvi 9-13).
Notice that if you consider the word mammon(as) (µαµωνᾶς) as a Greek word and as a composite one (the majority of Greek words are composites), then the two parts "mam-mon(as)" could be explained (in Greek doric) as "lonely mother", which reminds Hera's myth mentioned above.
Other explanations could be mamm (means "mother" or "food") –onas (means "a place where you can find mamm"), also –m (means "with") –on (means "being") –as (with Circumflex, means "owner or seller").
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."Book of Revelation 2:17
According to the Book of Revelation, the mark of the beast seems to be a form of money.
"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding vote the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a man; and his (its) number is Six hundred threescore and six."Book of Revelation 13:16-18
