Basilikon

Its introduction marked the return to a wide-scale use of silver coinage in the Byzantine Empire,[2] and presaged the total abandonment of the gold coins around the middle of the century.

The basilikon was introduced shortly before 1304 by Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328), in direct imitation of the Venetian silver ducat or grosso, chiefly to pay the mercenaries of the Catalan Company.

[2][3][4] The Byzantine coin closely followed the iconography of the Venetian model, with a seated Christ on the obverse and the two standing figures of Andronikos II and his son and co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos (r. 1294–1320) replacing St. Mark and the Doge of Venice on the reverse.

[4] The basilikon was of high-grade silver (0.920), flat and not concave (scyphate) as other Byzantine coins, weighing 2.2 grams and officially traded at a rate of 1 to 12 with the gold hyperpyron or two keratia, the traditional rate for Byzantine silver coinage since the days of the hexagram and the miliaresion.

[7] In the 1330s and 1340s, however, the basilikon's weight was much reduced, as a result of a silver shortage affecting all of Europe and the Mediterranean, falling to 1.25 grams by the late 1340s.