AUL1C CO! 



AUREU8. 



to 1404, M. 41, h. 

 chapter held at Laiosater in 1518, <ol. 63. 



2. The detail* of the great 

 Thi lat chapter WM heM 



preparatory U. tho promulgation of the reformed rule* of the order for 

 {hVaotiaesm England, set forth by Cardinal WoUey in the following 

 year. The cardinals regulation* are pnaerved in the Cottooian Manu- 

 cript, V*ap 'rdmatiooea at Statute per Thomam Wolaey, 



utulo & Cecilia! Cardinalem, per singula Monaateria Canonioorum 

 Rcgubrium S. Augustini oUerranda : eomposiU xxij* Martii, A*. 

 Dom, MOXIX. et Ban Henrici Ootavi xj.' 



ill. (Rafcaahofrath), was the title of the second 

 r or tribunal under the old German empire, the firat being the 



__ 



Imperial chamber or Rekhakammergwicht, which waa the supreme 

 tribunal f the. German empire. [luriHLAL CHAMBER.] It waa insti- 

 tuted by the Emperor Maximilian in 1501, originally an a personal 

 council for the sovereign, but it soon acquired a jurisdiction over a 

 variety of affairs. The Aulic Council consisted of a (resident, a vice- 

 prosideat, the vice-chancellor of the empire, and eighteen councillors, 

 MX < whom were required to be protostants : the vote* of these six, 

 whan unanimous, ware oonajdarari equal to those of all the rest. The 

 ation of the Aulic Councillors belonged to the emperor, who 



paid them, with the exception of the rue-president, who was appointed 

 by the archbishop of Mains ; they were drawn from two classes, 

 noble* and civilians. The affairs which were under the exclusive 

 jurisdiction of thia court were of three sortu: 1. Feudal processes 

 concerning the immediate feudatories of the emperor; 2. Those called 

 nstrmla Catarit, including appeals from the hereditary dominions of 

 the emperor; 8. All matters concerning the imperial jurisdiction in 

 Italy, a* the emperor was styled King of the Romans. The investitures 

 of counties of the German empire were given by the Aulic Council. 

 The Aulic Council did not interfere in the political or state affairs of 

 the empire. The council ceased at the death of every emperor ; and 

 the new emperor made a fresh appointment. The decisions of the 

 Aulic Council were submitted to the emperor for his approbation, by 

 which they became law. Pollnitz, in the first volume of his ' Memoirs,' 

 compare* the Aulic Council to the old French Parliament, with this 

 difference, that the former could not make remonstrances to the sove- 

 reign, and did not register any other acts but its own decisions. 



At the extinction of the German empire by the renunciation of 

 Francis II. in 1806, and the establishment of the Confederation of the 

 Rhine under the protection of the Emperor Napoleon, the Aulic 

 Council ceased to exist. There is, however, a council at Vienna for 

 the affairs of the war department of the Austrian empire : it is called 

 J/ojkru*pratA,ot which the president possesses the powers of a minister 

 of war, subject of course to the will and directions of the sovereign. 



AURANTIIN. [HE8PKIUD13.] 



.\rKATKS. [GOLD.] 



AUREOLE. [NiMBtrs.1 



AU'REUS, or DENARIUS AUREUS, the ordinary Roman coin of 

 gold, was equivalent to twenty-five silver denarii, or a hundred sestertii 



Gold was first struck at Rome in the year of the city 547, or 207 

 before Christ, in the consulahip of C. Cl. Nero and M. Liv. Salinator, 

 sixty-two years after the introduction of the coinage of silver. The 

 earliMt coin of gold at this time was named a scruple (scrupulum), and 



Scrupnlnm. 

 Brit. Mu. Gold. Actual riir. 



went for twenty seat ere us of that age. (Plin. ' Nat. Hist' lib. xxxiii. 

 e. 3 ; edit. Daleoampii, et Variorum. In other editions, c. 18.) It had 

 the head of Mars on one side, and an eagle standing on a thunderbolt 

 upon the other, with the word ' ROMA ' below ; and waa marked xx at 

 the back of the head of Man. Raper (' Inquiry into the value of ancient 

 Greek and Roman Money, Philos. Transact. Ixi. p. 508,) determines 

 the weight of the scruple to have been 174 Troy grains, which is the 

 weight of one in perfect condition in the British Museum ; but Hussey 

 ' Ancient Weights and Money,' fixed the scruple at 18'06 grains. 

 Naoaeus, as quoted by Eckbel (' Doctr. Num. Vet.' torn. v. c. 4), makes 

 the true weight twenty-one grains and one-third. These, as it appears, 



A triple Dcrnpalum. 

 Brit. Mm. Gold. Actual ilze. 



are Paris grains (Eckhel, v. 4) ; 174 Troy grains being about equivalent 

 to 21 i Paris grains. Ita double waa marked xxxx, or forty sesterces ; 

 and its triple ex, nr sixty, which weighed 52 grains. The symbol 

 which precedes the x on thin triple scruple, indicates L or 50 : Eckhel 

 shows, that on the denarii of Tib. Claudius, and in other oases, the 

 60 by a symbol very like an inverted T. The 



,;,., 



Mr. 



! 



were heavier Uua they were afterwards. 

 _ t of that of Sulla M 130-1 grains, but bad 

 than one of Pompey, which weighed 128-2 grain* ; 

 and Mr. Noel Humphreys says the Aiirvus of Lucullan weight 

 grain*, while h* had seen none wnsghiiifl more than 167 grains. 



Pliny proceeds to say that it was afterwards usual to coin forty 

 piece* out of the pound of gold (larger in use, of course), bearing the 

 general name of Aurei. and that the Roman emperors by degrees 

 mads them forty-five to the pound. In a passage, the corruptness of 

 which is more than suspected, some of the texts ascribe this lost change 



t-. N. !. 



Alexander Severua coined pieces of one-half and onc-thinl 

 aureus, called Seminif and Trrntiuii (.Kl. Lnmpriil. in Alex. Seven 

 Vita,' c. 39), whence the aureus came to be called tulidtu or tuliitat 

 anrrtu, a* being the integer. 



Soon after the reign of this prince the coinage became very irregular, 

 till Conntautiui' entirely now-modelled it by coining aurei of i* 

 two to the |>ound of gold (' Codex Theod. de Ponderatorilmx.' ; 1. 

 ' Cod. Justin.' 1. x. tit. 70, de Susoeptoribus, 6) ; a more convenient 

 number than either forty or forty-five, as it divided the ounce and half 

 ounce without a fraction. 



Eckhel (' Doctr. Num. Vet.' ut supr.) divides the vari.iti<mn of weight 

 of the aurei between the year 547 of Rome and Caracalla's tin. 

 eight epochs, varying in the respective coins from 153 to 128 (Paris) 

 grains. That the estimates are correct may be gathered from thu 

 following facts, ascertained from aurei, or gold denarii, all in a state of 

 high preservation in the British Museum. An aureus of Julius Cicsar 

 weighed 123 grains, which is exactly the weight of an English sovereign. 

 Out of twenty-five gold denarii of Augustus, one weighed 115 grains, 

 five weighed 120 grains each, three 120$, four 121 grains, four Vl'l, 

 and one 127. In Meyer's ' Grosse Conversations Lexikon,' mention i- 

 made of an aureus of Augustus, found at Herculaneum, wrighing 540 

 grains, of which a representation has been published by Kehl ; and one 

 of Valens, now in the Vienna cabinet, still heavier. Mr. Noel Hum- 

 phreys calls the first a medallion , and the second is no doubt of a similar 

 character. Of fifteen aurei of Nero, four weighed 113 grains, two 114, 

 two 116, two 118, one 119, one 120. An aureus of Maximianus II. 

 weighed 81 grains, Carausiiu 67, and Maxentius 79. The coin of 

 CarausiuB, of which a copy is here given, is believed to be uuiijue. The 



I'.rit. Mus. Gold. Actual size. 



Rev. Mr. Cracherode, who bequeathed it to the British Museum, bought 

 it at the price of 1501. Of the aurei of Constantino in the Museum, one 

 weighed 66 grains, three 67, three 69J, one 734, and one 81 J. The 

 highest weights are possibly of coins struck before Constantino's re- 

 arrangement of the coinage. All here mentioned, as far as can be 

 ascertained, are of gold witli.mt .-illoy. The town of Canarea possessed 

 a mint at one time as well as Rome ; and there is no <lml>t there were 

 also many fraudulent aurei. Macrobius states (' 8 

 Jewish coin of precisely the same value as an aureus was in 1 

 current at Ephesus. 



The average weight of the aurei of Augustus, then, appears to have 

 been nearly 121 grains; that of Nero's aurei nearly 117. 



llaper says the Consular aurei weighed at a mean 126 grains. S !!,.- 

 of the Family aurei in the Museum weigh 122, 124, and 125 grains. 



The following is Letronne's table of the mean weigh' 

 transferred into Troy grains : 



French (rr. 

 J. Cscaar . . 153-25 



Augustus . 

 Tiberius 

 Caligula . 

 Claudius 

 Nero 

 Titus . 



14871 

 1457 



1 115 

 1 Ifii 

 139-5 

 137-3 



Troy (tr. 



121-1)7 

 119-53 

 118-55 

 118-68 

 114-44 

 112-64 



(Letronne, ' Considerations generates sur 1' Evaluation des Monuaies 

 Grecques et Komaines,' Ac. 4to. Paris, 1817.) 



Victors in the chariot races were usually rewarded with anroi. 

 (Suetonius, ' Claud.' cap. 21, 10 ; Juv. ' Sat.' vii. 248.) The Scholiast 

 observes that no more than five were allowed to be given in ouch oases. 

 (Buleng. ' de Circo,' c. 65.) The fee (probably the maximum) to a 

 lawyer was centum aunt, see Ulpian (D. i. 1- t .') \ 



single aureus was all that Justinian permitted to be risked u< 

 (Cod. Cakagninus ' de Talorum Tees, et Calc. Ludis,' an Grxv. 

 1 Theeaur,' torn. vii. col. 1228.) 



The reader who wishes for information upon the aureus ) 

 what is here given, may consult Pitisciw, ' Lexicon ' L I'M ran ; E>- kl i . I . 

 ' 



. 



. Num. Vi-t.' turn. v. ; I'inkiTton, ' KNJUJ- on Medals,' vol. I. 

 Uaper'i ' Inquiry,' already referred to ; liockli's ' Untersuchuugen uber 



