Delineation of Ancient and Modern Numismatics

Hence these are called nummi ratiti coins depicting a ship's prow, and the old proverb: "Either heads or ships." Hence Ovid, Fasti, Book I, line 239:
original: "At bona posteritas puppim formavit in ære, Hospitis adventum testificata Dei."
"But good posterity formed a ship on the bronze, testifying to the arrival of the guest God."
Compare lines 229, 230. Compare Grose de Bose's Dissertation on the Janus of the ancients and on some coins regarding him; the first of the Select Dissertations on Rarer Ancient Coins (published in Hamburg, 1709, quarto).

§. VII.

When, however, a certain price was assigned to each species, money was called moneta from monere, to warn/advise, because each species warned of a certain price or weight: or because it warns that no fraud be committed in the metal or weight. See Cicero, On Divination, Books I and II, and Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, Book XVI, Chapter 17. Compare David Hoffmann's Dissertation held at the Julian Academy in 1717 on the Goddess Moneta, and Lingen's cited tract, Chapter VI, on the origin of money among the Romans, page 67 and following.

§. VIII.

The value of Roman bronze coins was the value of the standard As. The As, which is also called assis (not to be confused with the as of the inheritance of the jurists, which was divided into twelve ounces), was initially...