THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
required to possess a graduated property qualification
from 20,000 to 2000 pounds of bronze. The square ccs
was successively reduced from twelve ounces to nine
ounces or 9-i- ounces, and the circular form to four
ounces, two ounces, one ounce, and half an ounce, when
it became an actual coin ; and it is to be supposed that
Macrobius the grammarian, who lived in the fourth or
fifth century of our era, alludes to the modified piece
when he speaks of the Roman youths tossing up the
money and crying capita aid navia?—in reference to
the head and the prow of a galley on either side. In the
Roman Consular series the highly picturesque types
form a valuable adjunct to classical mythology, as the
coins on their reverses generally present an allusion to
some familiar legend associated with the prehistoric
or primitive annals of the republic. The earliest silver
coinage took place about b.c. 485, and the types chosen
were Greek in their feeling and taste : a figure driving
a chariot, a galeated head of Rome, a Janiform head,
all with the word Roma, at first in indented letters.
These pieces were denarii = the ancient decussis or two
ccra, and they were followed by the qumarii and victo-
r'uit'i = respectively to a half and two-thirds of the larger
denomination. It is extremely probable that the ces, in
its final module under the Papirian law, remained current
long after the introduction of a higher metal, in emula-
tion of the Greek system in Southern Italy, and that
the denarius and its divisions merely superseded the
multiples of the brass or bronze, no longer found neces-
sary or convenient, except that in the more remote parts
no