Delineation of Ancient and Modern Numismatics

The same is attested by Ovid in his Fasti, Book I, line 221:
original: "Æra dabant olim; melius nunc omen in auro est: Priscaque concessit victa moneta novæ."
"They used to give bronze in former times; now there is a better omen in gold; and the ancient currency has yielded, conquered by the new."

From this also arose the rewards and penalties of heavy bronze in the penal laws of Rome. See Livy, History, Book IV, Chapters 41 and 45; Pliny, loc. cit. To this also pertains what Aurelius Augustine reports concerning the gods of the Romans in The City of God, Book IV, Chapter 21 (Works, Antwerp edition 1700, folio, Tome VII, page 80):
original: "Nam ideo patrem Argentini Æsculanum (Deum) posuerunt, quia prius ærea pecunia in usu esse cœpit, post argentea."
"For they set up Aesculanus a deity associated with bronze as the father of Argentinus a deity associated with silver, because bronze money began to be in use first, and silver later."

Servius Tullius, the first king among the Romans to stamp bronze, initially used a crude mass stamped with the mark of cattle, whence pecunia money is named from pecus cattle. Regarding silver coins, this was from the Sicilians. See Varro, On the Latin Language, Book IV, pages 24, 41, and Joseph Scaliger's Conjectanea on Varro, Book IV, page 69; Pliny, Natural History, Book XVIII, Chapter 3; Plutarch in Publicola, Tome I of his Works; Cassiodorus, Roman History, Book VII, Chapter 32. Sometimes on coins struck by posterity for memory and honor, on one side appears Janus with a double face, and on the other a raft or ship.