The sentences first: "When one of the flattering lords in Timon of Athens offers Timon’s servant a bribe to pretend not to have seen him, the payment is denominated in solidares, a common Elizabethan coin. Timon’s debts, on the other hand, are reckoned in talents, a currency in which even Shakespeare seems to be unsure. At one point, the lord Lucius is shocked that “his lordship… want[s]… fifty-five hundred talents,” a number that seems to show marks of authorial revision from fifty to five hundred, or vice versa."
The problem is that the "solidare" is not a common Elizabethan coin.
Working through an answer: On the stage, this scene is almost certainly played with shillings: Timon's servant throws some sort of coin back at the lord, and "solidare" is a made-up word (or an error) from the Latin "solidus," the root word of the French "sou" and the English abbreviation "s." for "shillings."
And that's key--a solidare cannot be a Greek coin.
How do I do this in a sentence, though...
