Ancient Greek coin

Usage examples of obolus.

Bertrand Broussel--no, La Marmotte means you no harm, and I would stake a thousand pistoles against an obolus that you will hear something of interest concerning mademoiselle.

All these, and a hundred others of equally varied description, go off on the landing-stage, whence they will have to pay their obolus to the Charon of the Thames ere they are swallowed up in the living tide that rolls along the Strand from morn to night.

The obolus for Charon, the cake of honey for Cerberus, the shadows of these articles would be borne and used by the shadow of the dead man.

Cuma, at Hermione, in Argolis, where the people thought the passage below so near and easy that they neglected to give the dying an obolus to pay ferriage to Charon, at Tanarus, the southern most point of Peloponnesus, where Herakles went down and dragged the three headed dog up into day, at the cave of Trophonius, in Lebadea, and at several other places.

He further told us he had seen a priest of the Roman Catholic Church put a half-crown into the mouth of a corpse at Portobello, to represent, we presume, the obolus exacted by Charon for ferrying the shades of the buried dead across the under-world rivers.