Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/392

 ·8 inches long, and three inches thick, provided only it was of full weight when placed in the scale. These are the pieces which are known as aes rude; as yet they are mere lumps of metal, without any stamp or device. Gaius well describes this stage: "For this reason bronze and the balance are employed (in mancipatio) because formerly they only employed bronze coins, and there were bars (asses), double bars (dupondii), half-bars (semisses) and quarters (quadrantes), nor was there any gold or silver coin in use, as we can learn from a law of the Twelve Tables, and the force and power of these coins depended not on their number but on weight. For as there were bars (asses) of a pound weight, there were also two pound bars (dupondii), whence even still the term dupondius is used, as if two in weight . And the name is still retained in use." The half-bars likewise and quarters were no doubt proportionately adjusted to weight. It will be observed that the omission of all mention of the decussis as a standard seems to throw additional doubt on Mr Soutzo's hypothesis. The plain fact is that a mass of bronze ten pounds in weight would have been extremely cumbrous and unhandy for purposes of manufacture into the implements of everyday life. When and by whom a stamp was first placed on the bars, it is of course impossible to say. Tradition however seems unanimous in assigning it to the Regal period. Pliny's account of the Roman coinage is as follows : "King Servius first stamped bronze. Timaeus hands down the tradition that aforetime they employed it in a rough state at Rome. It was stamped with the impressions of animals (nota pecudum), whence it was termed pecunia. The highest rating in the reign of that king (Servius) was 120,000 asses, and accordingly this was the first class. Silver was struck 485 ( 268) in the Consulship of Q. Ogulnius and C. Fabius, five years before the first Punic war, and it was enacted that the denarius