Delineation of Numismatic Science

of a pound weight and a dupondius two-pound coin; then it was sextantarius sixth-part of a pound; afterwards, by the Papirian law, it was uncial one-ounce weight; and finally it was semiuncialis half-ounce weight. See DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS, Roman Antiquities, Book IX. GUILLAUME BUDÉ, Book on the As and its parts, and HENRICUS LORITIUS GLAREANUS, Book on the As and its parts, Basel, 1550, folio.

§. IX.

The sestertius quarter-denarius coin held a place in counting among the Romans, and its symbol was LLS, IIS, H-S, or HS; it was not, however, a frequent type of coin, and it constituted two and a half asses, or a fourth part of a denarius. Cf. VITRUVIUS, Book III, Chapter I. The Romans said indiscriminately, for example: ten thousand sesterces and ten times a sestertius; one hundred thousand sesterces and one hundred times a sestertius, and the number "thousand" was not always added. See JOHANN FRIEDRICH GRONOVIUS, Commentary, edited several times, on Sesterces, or on ancient money.

§. X.

Silver was stamped in Rome in the year U.C. 485, under the consuls Quintus Ogulnius and Gaius Fabius, five years before the First Punic War, according to PLINY, Natural History, Book XXXIII, Chapter III. For although most printed copies of PLINY have the year 585, the more accurate annals report the year 485,