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agrees, in the 485th year of the city. Some of the ear- 
lieft pieces, of which feveral ftill remain in the cabinets 
of the curious and the great, exhibited a female 
galeated head on one fide, as does the quinarius I 
am confidering; and on the reverfe (5) Caftor and 
Pollux , or, as Sig. olivieri calls them, * two Caf 
tors , as both tnefe figures are horfemen, fuch as 
dearly and diflindly appear upon my coin. Where- 
fore, as the letters forming the word roma, in the 
exergue, are antique enough, at lead:, for the time 
when filver was firffc coined at Rome, or five years 
before the (6) commencement of the firft Punic war, 
we may fairly fuppofe my quinarius to be either 
coeval with, or, as I rather imagine, a little anterior 
to the commencement of that war. 
IV. 
The monogram on the reverfe of this quinarius, 
i*o extremely remarkable for the number of letters it 
contains, we fhall find, upon a clofe and attentive 
examination, to exhibit the word romanoro, the 
mafculine genitive cafe plural of romanvs, in the 
days of c. duilius and l. scipio, the fon of bar- 
Batus, towards the clofe of the fifth century of 
Rome; fome time after the completion of which, 
the Romans converted the (7) lafl fy liable ro into 
(5) P. Joubert, Science des Medaill. c. 5. Annib. degli Abati 
Oliver, in Sag. di DiJJertaz. Academic . &c. di Carton. Tom. IV. 
p. 134. In Roma, 1743. 
* Caftor and Pollux, or the Diofcuri, Aioc-xagot , are fome- 
times both denominated Caftor, as we learn from Pliny and Ar- 
nobius, not to mention other antient authors of good repute. 
Plin. Nat. Hi/i. Lib. X. c. 43. Arnob. Contra Gent, Lib. IV. 
(6) Plin. ubi fup. 
(7) Joan. Bapt. Biancon, ubi fup. 
RVM. 
