Monies of the Romans. [1] The poverty of the early Romans did not permit them to mint money . They went two centuries without minting any, using instead unminted copper that they exchanged by weight. For greater convenience Numa had the copper cut into pieces of roughly twelve ounces without any stamp. Because of their crude form they were called as rudis , and that was the only Roman money . Long afterword Servius Tullius replaced their crude form with round pieces of the same weight and value, stamped with the image of an ox. These coins were called as libralis or libella because they weighed the same as a pound. Later they were subdivided into small coins to which were added letters to mark their weight and value in proportion to what each coin weighed. The largest was the decusis , which had the value and weight of ten asses , for which reason it was called the denarius , and for the mark of its value it bore an “X.” The quadrusis was worth four of the small coins [i.e., four asses], the tricusis three, [and] the sesterce two and one-half. Among the Romans it [the sesterce] was always worth one-fourth denarius, despite the changes that occurred in their monies, and it was marked with two capital letters “I” with a bar in the middle followed by an “S,” thus: “H-S.” The dupondius was worth two asses, as the two points on it signified. The as was subdivided into small coins with names as follows: the duns weighed eleven ounces, the dextans ten, the dodrans nine, the bes eight, the septunx seven, the semisis —which was the half as —weighed six, the quintunx five, the triens —which was one-third of the as —weighed four ounces, the quatrans or one-fourth [as] three, the sextans or one-sixth [as] two, and finally the uncia was the ounce, and weighed one ounce.

All these coins were made only of copper, and were so rare in the early Republic that the fine for contempt of the magistrates was paid in livestock. As a result of this scarcity of specie, the practice of using unminted copper by weight for payments lasted a long time. The formula was even retained in the laws to describe a cash purchase, as we see in Horace: libra mercatur et aere . [2] Livy records that in the Roman year 347 [407 BCE] the senators, having imposed a tax to provide for the needs of the Republic, had the value in copper ingots transported by chariots to the public treasury—which was called the aerarium from the word aes , genitive aeris , which means copper—because there was no gold or silver in Rome. [3]

In year 485 after the foundation of this city [269 BCE], the Romans began to manufacture monies of silver on which they imposed the same names and values as those of copper: the silver denarius was worth ten as , or ten pounds of copper, the half denarius of silver or quinarius five, [and] the sesterce of silver two and one-half, or one-fourth denarius. These first denarii of silver initially weighed one ounce, and their stamp showed the head of a woman wearing a helmet to which was attached a wing at each side, or else it was a Victory driving a chariot drawn by two or four horses abreast, for which reason these coins were called bigati or quadrigati , and on the reverse was the image of Castor and Pollux. Consequently the ratio of silver to copper among the Romans was one to 960, because the Roman denarius being worth ten as , or ten pounds of copper, it was worth 120 ounces of copper, and the same denarius being worth one-eighth ounce of silver, according to Budée, this resulted in the ratio that we have just mentioned. [4]

No sooner did the Romans have enough silver to mint money than the First Punic War broke out, which lasted twenty-four years and began in Roman year 489 [265 BCE]. Then the needs of the state became so great that they had to reduce the as liberalis weighing twelve ounces to a weight of two [ounces of copper], and all other monies in the same proportion, though they retained the same value. The needs of the state having doubled during the Second Punic War, which began in Roman year 536 [218 BCE] and lasted seventeen years, the as was reduced to one ounce [of copper], and all other monies reduced proportionally. Most of these asses of one ounce bore the imprint of the double head of Janus on one side and the prow of a ship on the other.

This reduction or retrenchment, required by the needs of the state, corresponded to what we call an augmentation of the money . To remove half the silver from the écu of six livres and mint two in its place, or to raise its value to twelve livres, have precisely the same effect.

No surviving record shows how the Romans conducted their [monetary] operation during the First Punic War, but what they did during the Second demonstrates remarkable wisdom. The Republic was unable to pay its debts. The as weighed two ounces of copper, and the denarius, being worth ten asses , was worth twenty ounces of copper. The Republic minted asses of one ounce of copper; it gained on its creditors by half, and paid one denarius with these ten ounces of copper. This operation caused a great upheaval to the state, which needed to be kept as small as possible. It involved an injustice, which needed to be as small as possible. Its goal was the liberation of the Republic from its citizens, and it must not be allowed to result in the liberation of the citizens from each other. Consequently, there was a second operation, and it was decreed that the denarius, which until then had been ten as , would now contain sixteen. As a result of this double operation, though state creditors lost half, private creditors lost only a fifth, prices increased only a fifth, and the real alteration of the money was only a fifth. The other consequences are apparent. In a word, the Romans acted better than we do, since our operations affect both public and private fortunes [equally].

Yet the success of the Romans toward the end of the Second Punic War having left them masters of Sicily, and having acquainted them with Spain, the quantity of silver increased in Rome. They conducted this operation that reduced the denarius of silver from twenty ounces [of copper] to sixteen, and it had the effect of altering the ratio of silver to copper, which had been one to 160, and now became one to 128.

At the same time in Roman year 547 [207 BCE], during the consulate of Claudius Nero and Livius Salinator, they began for the first time to mint gold coins, which they called nummus aureus , in the size of 40 to the twelve-ounce pound, so that it weighed nearly two and one-half drams, since there were three drams to the ounce. The nummus aureus , having retained for a fairly long time the size of 40 to the pound, was later changed to 45, to 50, and to 55. [5]

Under the emperors, new operations had a different effect on the monies . Those of the Republic took the form of retrenchment. The state exposed its needs to the people and did not attempt to trick them. Under the emperors they took the form of debasement. The princes, reduced to desperation by their own generosity, were obliged to alter [the alloy of] the monies , an indirect approach that reduced the harm and appeared not to touch it [i.e., the people]. They took back a part of the gift, and hid their hand. Without discussing the reduction of payments and gifts, they were [nonetheless] reduced. It should be noted that under Tiberius, and even before his reign, silver was as common in Italy as it is today in any part of Europe, but as luxury soon drew into foreign countries the silver that filled Rome, this export reduced its abundance among the Romans, and resulted in the further weakening of the monies by the emperors. [6] Didius Julianus began this weakening. The money of Caracalla was more than half alloy, that of Severus Alexander two-thirds. The weakening continued, and under Gallien one finds only silverized copper.

The prince who, in our own times, would conduct such violent operations on the monies would fool only himself, and fool no one else. Foreign exchange has taught the banker to compare all the monies of the world and set them at their true value. The degree of purity of monies is no longer a secret. If a prince begins [to issue] billon, everyone will follow suit, and do so in his place. Coins will leave strong and come back weak. If, like the Roman emperors, he were to weaken silver without weakening gold, he would soon see the gold disappear, and he would be reduced to his bad silver. The exchange, in a word, has eliminated the great abuses of authority, or has at least eliminated the success of great abuses of authority. [7]

I have only a few more remarks to make on Roman monies and their equivalency.

It appears that prior to the decline of the Republic, no head of a consul or other magistrate was ever shown on silver or gold coins. Then the three masters of the monies , known as the monetary triumvirs , took it upon themselves to put on a few of them the heads of whomever they pleased, if they were distinguished public officers, taking care nevertheless that these persons not be living, for fear of exciting the jealousy of the other citizens. But after Julius Caesar arrogated to himself the dictatorship for life, the Senate allowed him, to the exclusion of all others, to put the image of his head on the monies , an example that the emperors afterward imitated. There were several people who had gold and silver coins minted showing their name, such as the Philippi, the Antonii, etc. Several used the heads of empresses as the stamp. Constantine had the head of his mother put on several, and after he embraced Christianity, he ordered that the pieces of money minted in the Empire be marked with a cross. [8]

The Romans counted by denarii, sesterces, minas of Italy or Roman pounds, and talents. Four sesterces made a denarius, which we evaluate in money of England—whose value is not variable—at 7½d. On the basis of this equivalency, 96 denarii, which made a mina of Italy or Roman pound, came to 3£ sterling, and the 72 pounds that composed a talent came to 216£ sterling. [9]

I have said that the Romans counted by sesterces. They had the small sesterce, sestercius , and the large sesterce, sestertium . The small sesterce was worth about 1¾d sterling. A thousand small sesterces made a sestertium , worth 8£ 1s 5d 29 [ sic , for 2q] sterling. A thousand sestertia made decies sestertium (because centies was always implied), which comes to 8,972£ 18s sterling. Centies sestertium , or centies H-S, correspond to 80,729£ 3s 4d sterling; millies H-S to 807,291£ 13s 4d; millies centies H-S to 888,020£ 16s 8d sterling. [10]

The ratio of gold to silver was ordinarily ten to one, sometimes eleven, and sometimes twelve to one. Apart from the real monies of gold, silver, and copper, I find that Martial mentions small-denomination money of lead that circulated during his time. They gave it, he says, as compensation to those who agreed to accompany persons who wanted to appear in the city with a procession. But it seems likely that this supposed money of lead served only as a sign and token, to count the number of people employed by a particular individual. [11]

To prevent counterfeiters from imitating certain gold and silver coins, the Romans thought of serrating them all around like a saw, and these sorts of coins were called nummi serrati . There are translators and commentators of Tacitus who are persuaded that the nummus serratus was money that bore the image of a saw, and this error has found its way into several dictionaries. [12]

1. This article is largely an abridgement of the first four pages of the article of the same title in François Abot de Bazinghen, Traité des monnoies et de la juridiction de la Cour des monnoies, en forme de dictionnaire, 2 vols. (Paris: Guillin, 1764), 2:61–65.

2. Horace, Epistles 2.2.158. For a modern edition and English translation, see Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, ed. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), 436–437. Fairclough translates the quoted Latin passage: “which he buys with bronze and balance.”

3. Livy, History of Rome 4.60. Livy actually specifies that there was no coined silver in Rome ( argentum signatum ). The word aes could signify either copper or bronze, or more broadly any base metal, and was the etymological root of the currency unit as . The year of the foundation of Rome, conventionally abbreviated “AVC” (or “AUC”), calculates dates from the legendary foundation of Rome in 753 BCE, which corresponds to 1 AVC. The AVC dating system was not actually used in ancient Rome, but was popular among scholars in early modern Europe. Bonnie J. Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 676.

4. Starting with the final sentence of this paragraph, much of what Jaucourt copies from Abot de Bazinghen is in turn copied by the latter from Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois 22.11–13, and Jaucourt draws from both texts. Confusingly, neither Abot de Bazinghen nor Jaucourt explains how the early denarius could have contained both one ounce and one-eighth ounce of silver. In reality the quadrigatus contained one-fourth ounce of silver, or 1⁄48 Roman pound. Kenneth W. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 30, 481. Montesquieu does not discuss the quadrigatus, but simply states that the denarius was worth one-eighth ounce of silver. Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, De l’esprit des loix, 2 vols. (Geneva: Barrillot, 1748), 2:108–114; The Spirit of the Laws , trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 413–416. The citation of Budé, which Abot de Bazinghen takes from Montesquieu’s footnote, refers to Guillaume Budé, De asse et partibus eius libri quinque ([Paris]: Ascensianis, 1514).

5. This paragraph on the nummus aureus is not found in Montesquieu. The arithmetic here is confused. If there were three drams to the ounce and twelve ounces to the pound, then there must have been thirty-six drams to the pound, so that a coin weighing 1⁄40 of a pound would weigh just 9⁄10 of a dram. Abot de Bazinghen specifies that the aureus weighed slightly more than two and one-half drams, but otherwise makes the same error. He and Jaucourt appear to use the word “dram” (French dragme ) to translate the Latin duella , or one-third ounce. Harl indicates that the aureus was actually first minted in the late third century BCE with 1⁄48 Roman pound of gold (the same weight as the silver quadrigatus), but increased to 1⁄40 pound during the reign of Augustus. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy , 30, 475.

6. This sentence mentioning Tiberius is interpolated from Abot de Bazinghen, Traité des monnoies, 2:80. The rest of this paragraph is from Montesquieu, De l’esprit des Lois 22.13, and is also copied by Abot de Bazinghen.

7. This paragraph is copied from Montesquieu, De l’esprit des Lois 22.13, but is not included in Abot de Bazinghen. It is the final passage in his article that Jaucourt takes from Montesquieu.

8. This paragraph is copied from Abot de Bazinghen. The Philippi and the Antonii were powerful noble families in republican Rome.

9. This paragraph is adapted from Humphrey Prideaux, Histoire des Juifs et des peuples voisins, depuis la décadence des royaumes d’Israël & de Juda jusqu’à la mort de Jesus-Christ, 6 vols. (Amsterdam, Leipzig: Arkstée & Merkus, 1755), 1:lxvi, lxviii (or 1:xxiii–xxiv in the quarto edition of the same year). This was the French translation of an English work, The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations, from the Declension of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the Time of Christ, 2 vols. (London: Knaplock & Tonson, 1718), 1:xx, xxii. Prideaux’s estimate that the denarius of 1⁄96 pound had the same silver content as 7.5d British currency is reasonably accurate. The Roman pound weighed 322.5 grams, which divided by 96 gives 3.36 grams per denarius. In the eighteenth century the silver content of the pound sterling was 110.17 grams, and there were 240 pence to the pound, each representing 0.46 grams of silver. The denarius thus had the equivalent silver content of 7.3d. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy , 315; Nicolas Baudeau, Encyclopédie méthodique: Commerce, 3 vols. (Paris: Pankoucke, 1783–1784), 3:271. Baudeau presents the intrinsic gold and silver content of each principal European currency unit in Dutch asen , where 1 aes = 0.048 grams.

10. This paragraph is translated from the article “Moneys of Account among the Ancients,” in Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia: or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2 vols. (London: Knapton, et al., 1728), 2:571. Chambers gives the value of the sestertium as 8£ 1s 5d 2q sterling, where “q” represents the farthing, or one-quarter penny (0.25d). The typesetter of the Encyclopédie presumably misread the “q” as a “9.” The sterling equivalencies in this paragraph do not agree precisely with those in the previous paragraph, since based on Prideaux’s estimate that the denarius was worth 7½d, we would expect the sesterce, or one-fourth denarius, to be worth 1⅞d rather than 1¾d.

11. Martial, Epigrams 1.99, 10.74. This paragraph is adapted from Abot de Bazinghen. Writing in the first century CE, Martial referred to certain Roman coins as plumbea / plumbeos —literally made of lead—though his modern English translators tend to interpret the expression figuratively to mean small or bad coins.

12. This paragraph is adapted from Abot de Bazinghen, and from the editorial comments provided by Anne-Gabriel Meusnier de Querlon in Samuel von Pufendorf, Antoine-Augustin Bruzen de La Martinière, and Thomas-François de Grace, Introduction à l'histoire moderne, générale et politique de l'univers, 8 vols. (Paris: Mérigot, 1753–1759), 5:34.