Alyattes of Lydia

Alyattes became the fourth king of Lydia's Mermnad dynasty around 618 BC, inheriting a kingdom in western Anatolia from his father Sadyattes. Somewhere in his 57-year reign he ordered the striking of the world's first standardized coins from electrum, a gold-silver alloy, embedding a guarantee of weight and purity in each piece. The innovation replaced barter and raw metal with something fungible and recognized — a leap that his son Croesus would refine by minting pure gold. When Alyattes died around 561 BC, he left Croesus not just a throne but the machinery of an economy.