Delineation of Ancient and Modern Numismatics

they exercised during the time of their administration, they did not possess the right of marking coins with their own image, a right which was royal from the very beginning; hence on consular coins the images of Gods, Goddesses, and ancestors, of the city of Rome, of victories, public buildings, spectacles, and the like are displayed, joined with the names of the magistrates.

§. XX.

The Triumviri of the monetary office original: "Triumviri rei monetalis", or the III. VIRI A.A.A.F.F., that is, Triumviri for casting and striking gold, silver, and bronze original: "Triumviri Auro Argento Ære Flando Feriundo" as they are called on coins and stones, arose around the final times of the Republic as the proper monetary magistrate, and to their care was entrusted the casting and striking of money until the times of AUGUSTUS. See Law 2, § 30, of the Pandects, on the Origin of Law, CICERO Book VII of Familiar Letters, Epist. XIII, and Book III of Laws, page 1258.

§. XXI.

Those Triumviri expressed only their name on the coins, without other figures, and were called gold, silver, or bronze according to the material of the coins: but CÆSAR substituted four-man committees of moneyers Quadviumviros monetarios for the striking of public silver, whom AUGUSTUS, however, reduced to the earlier number of Triumviri.

§. XXII.