84 SYLVA CKITICA CANADENSIUM. 



Jormarum spectator siem. Terence, Eunuch, iii. 6, on which Donatus remarks : 

 ' Spectator, probator, utpecunice spectatores dicuntur;' Adcipe : heic sunt quinque 

 argenti lectce numeratoe mince. Plautus, Pseudol, iv. 7, 50 ; LectimCst : conveniet 

 numerus quantum debui. Terence, Phormio, i. 2, 3, on which Donatus remarks : 

 * Spectatione ledum est / Vert speciem calles, ne qua subcerato mendosum tinniat 

 auro ? Persius, v. 105, on which Koenig remarks : ' Sumptmn hoc ab illo hominum 

 genere, quorum erat probare numos, quique spectatores vel docimastce vocabantur.' 

 In later times, the provers of gold were called spectatores, as we know from 

 Symmachus, Epist. iv. 56 : Nullo jam provincialis auri incremento trutinam 

 Spectator incUnat. In none of our English works on archceology 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 corned 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 wns given to the people, and it appears henceforth to have occurred frequently. As 

 early as the year S6 B.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 Grati- 

 dianus 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).' 



"Dr. Schmitz's interpretation of the passage in Pliny's Natural History 

 seems to me very doubtful. The words are — ' Miscuit denario triumvir Antonius 

 ferrum. Miscentur oera falsce monetoe. Alii e pondere subtrahunt, quum sit 

 justum Ixxxiv e libris signari. Igitur ars facta denarios probare, tam jucunda 

 lege plebi, ut Mario Gratidiano vicatim totas statuas dicaverit.' Ars facta dena- 

 rios probare do not appear to me to signify ' a means of testing money and of 

 distiuguishing the good from the bad denarii was discovered,' for that cannot 

 have been done lege, 'by a law;' but rather 'the testing of denarii was made 

 an art, became a recognized occupation,' i. e., the law of Gratidianus provided 

 for the appointment or recognition of a certain class, whose business it was to 

 distinguish good and base denarii 



"It seems not improbable, then, that these tesserce were carried, or, it may 

 be, hixng round the neck, by those who acted as spectatores, as badges indicative 

 of their occupation, and that the inscription showed that they were authorized 

 to act as such, having been approved on the stated days, or in the stated months. 

 Thus the frequency of the occurrence of the Calends, Nones and Ides seems to 

 be satisfactorily accounted for ; for these were, as is well known, the settling 

 days, the principal times for money transactions. But a question presents 

 itself — which may also be asked if we accept the old reading spectatus with 

 reference to gladiators— why the days are stated on those ^esserce which were found 

 at or near the city, whilst the three examples of the month alone are on those 

 found in other places, viz. , Parma, Modena and Aries ? Mom m sen is of opinion 

 that perhaps we should take in these instances the month as used for the Calends 

 of the month — 'fortasse intelligendce sunt ipsce Jcalendce in tesseris his nescio quo- 



