| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.12 | Plin. Nat. 33.13 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.14 |
The next [Note] crime committed against the welfare of mankind was on the part of him who was the first to coin a denarius [Note] of gold, a crime the author of which is equally unknown. The Roman people made no use of impressed silver even before the period of the defeat [Note] of King Pyrrhus. The "as" of copper weighed exactly one libra; and hence it is that we still use the terms "libella" [Note] and "dupondius." [Note] Hence it is, too, that fines and penalties are inflicted under the name of "æs grave," [Note] and that the words still used in keeping accounts are "expensa," [Note] "impendia," [Note] and "dependere." [Note] Hence, too, the word "stipendium," meaning the pay of the soldiers, which is nothing more than "stipis pondera;" [Note] and from the same source those other words, "dispensatores" [Note] and "libripendes." [Note] It is also from this circumstance that in sales of slaves, at the present day even, the formality of using the balance is introduced.
King Servius was the first to make an impress upon copper. Before his time, according to Timæus, at Rome the raw metal only was used. The form of a sheep was the first figure impressed upon money, and to this fact it owes its name, "pecunia." [Note] The highest figure at which one man's property was assessed in the reign of that king was one hundred and
twenty thousand asses, and consequently that amount of property was considered the standard of the first class.
Silver was not impressed with a mark until the year of the City 485, the year of the consulship of Q. Ogulnius and C. Fabius, five years before the First Punic War; at which time it was ordained that the value of the denarius should be ten libræ [Note] of copper, that of the quinarius five libræ, and that of the sestertius two libræ and a half. The weight, however, of the libra of copper was diminished during the First Punic War, the republic not having means to meet its expenditure: in consequence of which, an ordinance was made that the as should in future be struck of two ounces weight. By this contrivance a saving of five-sixths was effected, and the public debt was liquidated. The impression upon these copper coins was a two-faced Janus on one side, and the beak of a ship of war on the other: the triens, [Note] however, and the quadrans, [Note] bore the impression of a ship. The quadrans, too, had, previously to this, been called "teruncius," as being three unciæ [Note] in weight. At a later period again, when Hannibal was pressing hard upon Rome, in the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus, asses of one ounce weight were struck, and it was ordained that the value of the denarius should be sixteen asses, that of the quinarius eight asses, and that of the sestertius four asses; by which last reduction of the weight of the as the republic made a clear gain of one half. Still, however, so far as the pay of the soldiers is concerned, one denarius has always been given for every ten asses. The impressions upon the coins of silver were two-horse and four-horse chariots, and hence it is that they received the names of "bigati" and "quadrigati."
Shortly after, in accordance with the Law of Papirius, asses were coined weighing half an ounce only. Livius Drusus, when [Note] tribune of the people, alloyed the silver with one-eighth part of copper. The coin that is known at the present day as the "victoriatus," [Note] was first struck in accordance with the
Clodian Law: before which period, a coin of this name was imported from Illyricum, but was only looked upon as an article of merchandize. The impression upon it is a figure of Victory, and hence its name.
The first golden coin was struck sixty-two years after that of silver, the scruple of gold being valued at twenty sesterces; a computation which gave, according to the value of the sesterce then in use, nine hundred sesterces to each libra of gold. [Note] In later times, again, an ordinance was made, that denarii of gold should be struck, at the rate of forty denarii [Note] to each libra of gold; after which period, the emperors gradually curtailed the weight of the golden denarius, until at last, in the reign of Nero, it was coined at the rate of forty-five to the libra.
| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.12 | Plin. Nat. 33.13 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.14 |
