434 & TESSERZ CONSULARES. 
NVM: (é.e., as I read it, spectator numorum or numularius)* in the 
recently published Arles inscription, I submit this reading as more: 
probable than any of which I am aware. 
Of the use of specéo and its derivatives in this sense, the following 
passages afford sufficient evidence: Lx omni pecunia certis nominibus 
deductiones fiert solebant, primum pro spectatione, &e. Cicero, Verr. 
v. 78; Cape hoc, sis. Quin das? Numi sexcenti heic erunt Probi, 
numerati; fae sit mulier libera, Atque hue continuo adduce. Jam 
Saxo heie erit. Non, hercle, quoi nune hoc dem spectandum, scio. 
Plautus, Perse, 11.3; Quum me ipsum noris, quam elegans formarum 
spectator siem. Terence, Hunuch, iii. 6, on which Donatus remarks : 
** Spectator, probator, ut pecunie spectatores dicuntur ;’ Adcipe: heic 
sunt quinque argenti lecte numerate ming. Plautus, Pseudol, iv. 7, 50; 
Lectum’st : conveniet numerus quantum debui. Terence, Phormio, 
i, 2, 3, on which Donatus remarks: “‘Spectatione lectum est ;” Veri 
speciem calles, ne qua suberato mendosum tinniat auro? Persius, 
v. 105, on which Keenig remarks: Sumptum hoc ab illo hominum 
genere, quorum erat probare numos, guique spectatores vel docim- 
asteé vocabantur. In later times, the provers of gold were called 
spectatores, as we know from Symmachus, Epist. iv. 56:—WNullo 
jam provincialis auri incremento trutinam Spectator inclinat. In 
none of our English works on Archeology is there any explanation 
of either of these terms—spectatio or spectator—but the necessity 
for employing persons skilled in distinguishing base from good coin, 
and the origin of this spectatio, are well pointed out in an article by 
Dr. Schmitz, on Moneta, in Smith’s ‘‘ Dictionary of Greek and 
Roman Antiquities” : 
“ As long as the Republic herself used pure silver and gold, bad money does 
not seem to have been coined by any one; but when, in 90 B.c. the tribune 
Livius Drusus suggested the expediency of mixing the silver which was to be 
coined with one-eighth of copper, a temptation to forgery was given to the 
people, and it appears henceforth to have occurred frequently. As early as the 
year 86 8.c. forgery of money was carried on to such an extent, that no one was 
sure whether the money he possessed was genuine or false, and the praetor 
M. Marius Gratidianus|saw the. necessity of interfering. (Cic. de off. iii. 20.) 
He is said to have discovered a means of testing money and of distinguishing 
the good from the bad denarii. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 46.) In what this means 
consisted is not clear; but some method of examining silver coins must have 
been known to the Romans long before this time. (Liv. xxxii, 2.)” 
* The nwmularii did more than tell whether coin was good or base. They seem to have 
been like our money brokers. Their occupation and position were below those of argentarit. 
In the Theodosian Code, xvi. 4, 5, servi and numulari are classed together. 
