The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

COINAGE AND CURRENCY IN ROMAN BRITAIN. 459
silver pieces, which could only have had an ephemeral
existence, is still to seek. Mommsen, on the other
hand, has pointed out that the average weight of the
silver pieces with which we are dealing estimated by
him at 4-55 grammes, a result closely approaching that
given above corresponded in fact with the silver
value of Y^O o of a pound of gold. He concludes there-
fore that the name of " miliarense " was for this reason
attached to these coins, 25 and in this he has been more
recently followed by M. Babelon. 26 This piece then
was the equivalent of 7^ of a silver pound, just as the
Constantinian solidus was -^ of a gold pound. Accord-
ing to this reckoning the value of the miliarense as
compared with the solidus was as 1 to 13-88.
That this equivalence of the average weight of the
silver t:
medallion" with the thousandth part of a
pound of gold attached to it the name " miliarense "
is in itself probable enough. The miliarense itself
figures too largely
in official documents of the time
for it not to have answered to some well-known type
of coin. The scrinium a miliarensibus, mentioned in
the Notitia, 21 is only one of a series of indications
that this name was applied to a familiar monetary
class. It is true that in the Edict of Valentinian II
and his colleagues, above cited, the name does not
appear. But in a Novella of Justinian, which to a
certain extent may be regarded as a reinforcement of
25
Op. tit., pp. 81, 82.
26
Traite des Monnaies Grecques et Eomaines, i, pp. 569, 570.
27 Notitia Dignitatum Orient-is, c. 12 ; Occiclentis, c. 10. The office
was in each case under the " Comes Sacraruui Largitionum ", and
was distinct from the "Scrinium Argenti" or "Ab Argento", and
from the " Scrinium a Pecuniis " which dealt with bronze coinage.
Cf. Cod. lustinianus, xii. 24. 7.
Hh 2