1 Tremissis In the name of Maurice Tiberius, Victory with crude face and draped hair, stubby tassels

The Lombard tremissis coinage occupies an awkward historical position: the Lombards invaded Italy in 568, yet continued striking gold in Byzantine imperial names for well over a century, a practice rooted in commercial necessity rather than political deference. Byzantine solidi and tremisses were the trusted currency of Mediterranean trade, and issuing imitative pieces under names like Maurice Tiberius kept Lombard gold acceptable in markets the kingdom needed to access. The degraded fabric — crude portraiture, stubby tassels, thickening flans — accumulated gradually across successive die generations, not as carelessness but as the natural entropy of copying copies.