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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 3076170, member: 44316&quot;]Everyone seems to agree that XXI refers two numbers, 20 and 1. It seemed one possibility could be &quot;20 of some smaller unit&quot;, but that possibility was convincingly discarded when the alloy of &quot;XI&quot; coins of Tacitus became known. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]773691[/ATTACH] </p><p>There are very rare coins of Tacitus with &quot;XI&quot; instead of &quot;XXI.&quot; (RIC says &quot;They are extremely rare and seem to indicate an attempt at an alternative tariff which proved impracticable and was quickly abandoned.&quot;) Callu, Brenot, and Barrandon analyzed some in NeAntC 1979 and I had some analyzed and published in NC 1993.&nbsp; You can read it a pdf of it here:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://augustuscoins.com/ed/notes/AlloyXI.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://augustuscoins.com/ed/notes/AlloyXI.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://augustuscoins.com/ed/notes/AlloyXI.pdf</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The point is that the &quot;XI&quot; coins have about twice the silver of the &quot;XXI&quot; coins, meaning 20 is not a multiple of some smaller value, rather it take 20 to make some larger value. The numbers suggest 20 parts copper to one part silver, so 20 of the &quot;XXI&quot; coins would have the silver of one pure-silver coin of that weight.</p><p><br /></p><p>The above coin is 3.43 grams and had 11.0% AR according to RBS and 13.6% AR according to EPMA. You can see the spot on the reverse (near 9:00) where the surface silvering was scraped away to allow investigation of the interior.</p><p><br /></p><p>I once considered writing an academic article on the meaning of &quot;XXI&quot;. I probably have a draft lying around somewhere. I recall gathering well over a dozen different explanations of &quot;XXI&quot;. I am not claiming certainty, but the alloy evidence supports the &quot;20 parts silver and one part copper&quot; interpretation.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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