Greek drachma 5 drachmae) were issued from 1885, with the first 5-drachma notes being made by cutting 10-drachma notes in half. When Greece finally achieved its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1828, the phoenix was introduced as the monetary unit; its use was short-lived, however, and in 1832 the phoenix was replaced by the drachma, adorned with the image of King Otto of Greece, who reigned as modern Greece's first king from 1832 to 1862. The drachma was divided into 100 lepta. In 2002 the drachma ceased to be legal tender after the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union,
Language and the euro 1999 with the motivation that "euro is a masculine noun". But the issue was then re-examined many times. Finally, in 2001 the consensus of the Accademia coalesced in favour of invariability. The rationale was based on the fact that abbreviated words originating from a longer word (for example "auto" from "automobile" (car) or "moto" from "motocicletta" (motorbike)) do not have a plural form, as well as the fact that the word "euro" is considered an abbreviation of the word "Eurovaluta" (European currency) . In 2002 an amendment to the financial act was proposed to adopt "euri" as the plural form