November 1, 1895.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



243 



the West in <176 a.d., there is no important change to 

 chronicle, except the rise of the Byzantine coinage, which, 

 being an outcome of the breaking away of the civiHzed 

 world from Rome, may well be left for consideration in 

 connection with the coinage of Europe in the Middle Ages. 

 In the above sketch of the history of Roman coinage we 

 have taken no account of the changes in the monetary 

 standard. This, nevertheless, is a most remarkable feature, 

 and must, at the risk of tedium, be dealt with in some 

 detail. The Roman bronze coinage was based on the 

 pound (libra) of bronze, and the mass of coined metnl 

 supposed to be equivalent to the pound was called ax. 



twenty-fourth of its original weight. (Figs. 1 — 5 represent 

 this gradual degradation, the se.rtans being selected as 

 typical). This degradation, which is without parallel in 

 the history of coinage, is only partially explained by the 

 tendency of all heavy coinages to fall in weight. It is 

 probable, nay more than probable, that soon after silver 

 came into use, the bronze coins became more or less 

 tokens ; that is to say, they were given an arbitrary 

 value, and their exact weight was, therefore, a matter of 

 small importance. The poorer a metal is the greater is the 

 tendency to use coins made of it as tokens rather than as 

 pieces expected to realize their intrinsic value. A further 



I'lG. i!. — Lihral As. First Cu-cului- C 



L' Luin;i;je. 



I 



s 



• ••• 



• •• 

 • • 



The lis was divided into twelve ounces {uiuite), and the 

 denominations (which were all, as we might expect from 

 the practical Romans, marked with their value) were thus 

 as follows : — 



As = 12 unciffi, marked with 



Semis or Half = 6 ,, „ 



Triens or Third =4 ,, ,, 



Quadrans or Fourth = 3 ,, ,, 



Sextans or Sixth ~ 2 ,, ,, 



Uncia or Twelfth 



There were also multiples of the as, such as the 

 dupondius, gundntssis, (/uincussis, and even decussis, of 2, 

 4, 5, and 10 assfs respectively. And, at any rate later, 

 there were divisions of the imcia. 



As a matter of fact no extant specimen of the so-called 

 _" libra! as " (Fig. B) is of the full weight of the libra, and it 

 is clear that no attempt was made to attain exactness in 

 weight. The as then began badly, and went through an 

 extraordinarily rapid process of degeneration. The exact 

 stages of this process are not certainly fixed, but they seem 

 to have been somewhat as follows. The first great reduction 

 took place in 2G9 b.c, when the as was reduced to a third 

 of its former weight {triental as). About 250 b.c, the 

 sextantal as (= two old uncia) was recognized. In the 

 second Punic war a third reduction took place giving the 

 wicial as, and later still the standard fell one-half to the 

 semancial as. Thus in the course of some two centuries 

 the bronze standard of the Romans was reduced to one 



explanation of the degradation is to be sought in the 

 shrmkage which takes place whenever a cast is made. If 

 the mould for one coin is made from another coin, the new 

 coin in cooling will become slightly smaller than its model, 

 and a third coin reproduced from the second will be 

 smaller stiU. 



The bronze coinage, which had been thus reduced to so 

 insignificant a position, seems actually to have ceased 

 about H8 B.C. It was not till the time of Augustus that 

 the Roman mint again made a regular issue of bronze 

 money, although generals like Julius Ctesar and Marc 

 Antony struck bronze in the provinces. 



With regard to the silver standard, it is only necessary 

 to say of the Roman coins struck for the Campanian cities, 

 that they conformed to the Greek standard already in use 

 in that district, the stater (Fig. 7) weighing 112 grains and 

 under. The unit of the silver coinage of Rome itself was 

 the denarim (Fig. 9, weighing /^ of a pound, equivalent to 10 

 asses, and marked with X) ; and the small denominations 

 were its half (quinarins, V) and quarter (sestertius, 2^ asses, 

 represented by IIS, afterwards written HS). These marks 

 of value cease to appear on the sUver coinage about 90 b.c. 

 In the Hannibalian war, when the as underwent its thu-d 

 reduction, the value of the denarius was slightly raised 

 by lowering its weight from .-',- to -^^ of a pound of silver. 

 At this weight it remained for more than three centui-ies, 

 and the coins were never alloyed. At the same time the 

 Roman mint openly indulged in the practice of issuing a 



