BOOK XXXIII. XIII. 42-45 



interest as ' weighed on account ' and paying as 

 * weighing do^vn,' and moreover it explains the 

 terms * soldiers' stipend,' which means ' weights of 

 heaped money,' and the words for accountants and 

 paymasters that mean ' weighers ' and ' pound- 

 weighers,' and owing to this custom in purchases that 

 deal with all larger personal property, even at the 

 present day, an actual pair of ' pound '-scales is 

 introduced. King Servius was the first to stamp a ^"^'1*"!"'' 

 design on bronze ; previously, according to Timaeus, 534 b.o. 

 at Rome they used raw metal. The design stamped 

 on the metal was an ox or a sheep, pecus, which is the 

 origin of the term ' pecunia.' The highest assess- 

 ment of one man's property in the reign of Servius was 

 120,000 as-pieces, and consequently that amount of 

 property was the standard of the first class of citizens. 



Silver was first coined in the 485th year of the city, 269-8 b.o. 

 in the consulship of Quintus Ogulnius and Gaius 

 Fabius, five years before the first Punic War. It 

 was decided that the value of a denarius should be 

 ten pounds of bronze, that of a half-denarius five 

 pounds, that of a sesterce two pounds and a half. 

 The weight of a standard pound " of bronze was 

 however reduced during the first Punic War, when 

 the state could not meet its expenditure, and it was 

 enacted that the as should be struck weighing two 

 ounces. This effected a saving of five sixths, and the 

 national debt was Uquidated. The design of this 

 bronze coin was on one side a Janus facing both 

 ways and on the other the ram of a battleship ; the 

 third of an as and the quarter as had a ship. The 

 latter had previously been called a teruncius, as 

 weighing three ounces. Subsequently when the 

 presence of Hannibal was being felt, in the dictator- 217 b.c. 



37 



