Juno Moneta: How a Roman Goddess Gave Us the Words Money and Mint

Every time you say “money” you’re saying the name of a Roman goddess. Juno Moneta had a temple on the Capitoline Hill, the Romans made their coins next to it, and her title ended up attached to the coins themselves. A silver denarius from 46 BCE in the Smithsonian’s National Numismatic Collection shows her face.

The funny part is that Moneta had nothing to do with money to begin with.

Denarius, Roman Republic, 46 BCE, with the head of Juno Moneta. National Museum of American History, National Numismatic Collection, Smithsonian Institution (CC0).

She who warns

Moneta most likely comes from the Latin verb monere, to warn or advise. The Romans told several stories to explain it. The best known has the sacred geese of Juno on the Capitol honking during a night attack by the Gauls around 390 BCE and waking the defenders in time. Cicero gives another: during an earthquake, a voice from Juno’s temple told the Romans to make an expiatory sacrifice.

Either way, Juno Moneta was a protector who spoke up before disaster. Her temple on the Arx, the northern peak of the Capitoline, was dedicated in 344 BCE.

Why the mint moved in next door

At some point the Roman state began striking coins at or beside that temple. Nobody knows exactly when. Temples were secure, sacred and watched, which is what you want around a store of silver. The coinage workshop became known as the place ad Monetam, “at Moneta’s”, and then simply as moneta.

From there the word travelled. Old French turned moneta into moneie, which English borrowed as money. Old English had taken the same Latin word much earlier and worn it down to mynet, which became mint. So both the metal in your pocket and the building that stamps it trace back to one temple on one hill.

A coin that shows its own workshop

Denarii of the Moneta type struck in 46 BCE by the moneyer Titus Carisius go a step further. The front carries Juno’s head with the label MONETA. The back shows the tools used to make the coin you’re holding: an anvil with the lower die set in it, the upper punch die above it decorated with a garland, a pair of tongs and a hammer, all inside a laurel wreath.

That’s the whole ancient minting process in one picture. A worker held a heated silver blank on the lower die with tongs, set the upper die on top, and struck it with the hammer. One blow, sometimes two, and the design was on both sides. It’s why ancient coins often look a little off-centre. They were hit by hand.

46 BCE was also a busy year for Rome’s mint. Caesar had just won the civil war in Africa and needed to pay his armies. A coin that celebrated the mint itself, under the watchful eye of the goddess who warns, fitted the moment.

Juno Moneta’s temple is long gone. Her name is on every central bank’s balance sheet.