Delineation of Ancient and Modern Numismatics

and is as debated as that which concerns the first inventor of letters. Yet it is highly probable that the coins which were massae rudes rough masses were first in use in Chaldea, the land first inhabited after the flood, and from there were carried to Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and finally to the Romans and other peoples. See Genesis, Chapters 20:16, 23:15-16, and 33:19. Compare Ott. Sperlingius Dissertation on the coins of the ancients and moderns not struck with a die, Amsterdam, 1700, quarto, Chapters II and III.

§ IV.

As far as the shape of coins is concerned, the most common and usual, which is also the most suitable and perfect, is the round shape. Sometimes, however, the shape is also angular and tetragonos four-cornered/square, and sometimes oblong.

§ V.

Regarding the origin and progress of numismatics among the Romans specifically, the Romans, when they needed other metals, first used raw bronze metal, and the as libralis a pound-weight coin and the dupondius a two-pound weight coin, named from its weight, were weighed out among them. From this arose the Latin words dispensator steward/distributor, expensae expenses, impensae costs, pendere to weigh/to pay, and stipendium soldier's pay/stipend. See Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, Book XX, Chapter I; and Pliny, Natural History, Book XXXIII.