Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/370

 a certain natural relation exists between the breadth of the thumb and the length of the foot, and as the relation held true just as much for the Kelt as the Chaldaean, there was no need for the ancient Italians to borrow their duodecimal system from the East. Now what are we to say as to the origin of the word uncia? Does it mean anything more or less than the breadth of the (thumb) nail? The use of unguis, a nail, as a measure was common in Latin, as we know from the phrases transversum unguem (the thickness of a nail) and ''latum unguem (a nail's breadth) side by side with transversum digitum'' (a fingers thickness) in Plautus. Uncia may be simply a derivative from unguis; there is no phonetic impossibility, and even if there were any linguistic irregularity, false analogy with unicus would amply account for it. The use of a word meaning nail to express the divisions of the foot is completely paralleled by the ancient Hindu system, where the finger-breadth is termed angala, i.e. nail (cognate of unguis and [Greek: onyx]).

Next we come to the word as itself, which appears in old Latin as assis. It is masculine in gender, which of itself is sufficient to throw doubts on its being a really abstract word. Can it be that we have a close relative of it in asser a rod, bar, pole, which is likewise masculine in gender? Whilst one form of the name was specially confined to a small rod or bar of copper, the other was employed in a wide and general way. These two forms assis and asser, -is are completely analogous to vomis and vomer, -is, a ploughshare. The meaning rod is in complete harmony with what we have said about the Greek obol. All that is now wanting to make our proof complete is some evidence that the primitive Italian as was really in the form of a rod or bar. The most archaic specimens of ancient Italian bronze money as yet described are those found at the Ponte di Badia near Vulci in 1828. These consisted (1) of quadrilaterals broken in pieces, weighing from 2 to 3 pounds each, stamped with an ox and trident, (2) cube-shaped pieces of copper without any mark, weighing from an ounce to a pound, and (3) some ellipse-shaped pieces for the most part weighing two ounces. But in the British Museum are preserved a number of pieces of