Gold appears not to have been coined at Athens till the time of the Macedonian empire, with the exception a solitary issue of a debased coinage in 407. But from a very early period the Asian nations, and he Greek cities of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, possessed a gold coinage, which was more or less current in Greece. Herodotus says that the Lydians were the first who coined gold; and the stater of Croesus appears to have been the earliest gold coin known to the Greeks. The dario was a Persian coin. Staters of Cyzicus and Phocaea had a considerable currency in Greece. There was a gold coinage in Samos as early as the time of Polycrates. - Smith, 1873