Obolus

or Obul, a small Greek coin. The name is thought to be akin to a word signifying a spit, and may have originated in a very probable use of copper or iron nails by the primitive Greeks as money. The Attic obolus was a silver coin, the sixth part of a drachma in value and weight. It weighed eleven and one-fourth grains and contained about one thirty-sixth as much silver as our standard dollar. The obolus of Aegina was heavier; that current in Asia Minor weighed but nine grains. The Attic obolus was a rude looking coin about three-eighths of an inch in diameter; it bore a face in profile on the obverse, and the owl, bird of Minerva, on the reverse. The obolus plays much the same part in Greek literature and proverb that penny plays in English literature. An obolus was placed in the mouth of a corpse before burial to pay the fee of Charon, ferryman across the river of Hades.