Delineation of Ancient and Modern Numismatics

...libral and a dupondius double-weight coin; then sextantarius a sixth of an as; later, by the Lex Papiria, uncial; and finally it was semiuncialis half an ounce. See Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book IX; Guillaume Budé's Book on the As and its Parts, and Henricus Loritus Glareanus' book on the As and its Parts (Basel, 1550, folio).

§. IX.

The sestertius a Roman silver coin had a place in counting among the Romans, and its sign was LLS, IIS, H-S, or HS. It was not, however, a frequent type of coin, and constituted two and a half asses, or a quarter of a denarius. Compare Vitruvius, Book III, Chapter 1. The Romans spoke promiscuously, for example, "ten thousand sesterces" and "ten times a sesterce"; "one hundred thousand sesterces" and "one hundred times a sesterce," and the thousand-number was not always added. See Johann Friderich Gronovius' Commentary on sesterces, or on ancient money, published multiple times.

§. X.

Stamped silver was in Rome in the year of the City 485, under the consuls Quintus Ogulnius and Caius Fabius, five years before the First Punic War, as Pliny testifies in Natural History, Book XXXIII, Chapter 3. For although most printed copies of Pliny have the year 585, the more accurate fasti chronological records hand down the year 485, and...