While the Catholic Encyclopedia article states, "There can be no papal coins of earlier date than that of the temporal power of the popes", in fact coinage may well have predated the emancipation of the Papal territories from Byzantine authority. The pope, going back at least as far as Gregory the Great (590-604), acted on numerous occasions as the paymaster for the Emperor's troops. So it is not too surprising that at some point the Pope might have had to issue the Emperor's coins himself. A number of silver issues from the Rome mint came to light in the early 1980s and these have been demonstrated as showing the monogram of the reigning Pontiff, even though they also have the devices of the Byzantine emperors of the seventh and early eighth centuries. This fact pushes the known date of the start of Papal coinage back at least as far as the reign of Pope Vitalian (657-672). Similar issues are known for Pope Adeodatus II, Sisinnius, Gregory II, Gregory III, and Zacharias.