Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1643328, member: 19463&quot;]Sestertius means half of the third.&nbsp; We would say two and a half.&nbsp; The denarius was originally ten asses so a quarter denarius was two and a half which we see abbreviated IIS.&nbsp; Later they retarrifed the denarius to 16 asses but did not change the names.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The early as fractions were all based on the unit uncia which was an ounce.&nbsp; The Roman pound had 12 ounces (as we still use for some precious metal weighing systems) rather than 16. They coins were marked with dots that count the number of twelths.&nbsp; A triens was a third of an as so it got four dots; the quadrans was a forth so it got three.&nbsp; The system called the 2 dot 1/6 a sextans and one dot 1/12 the uncia.&nbsp; There are even a few 5/12 and other odd denominations but people like me won&#039;t own them.&nbsp; All this was based on the &#039;liberal&#039; as or a coin weighing one Roman pound of copper.&nbsp; They are commonly available for a couple thousand $ now and something I wish I had bought back when they were only one thousand.&nbsp; After a while inflation caused the liberal (pound weighing not politically non-conservative) system to drop with each step named according to how much an as weighed.&nbsp; For example we see semi-liberal (half pounders) and sextantal (2 ouncers).&nbsp; Asses usually retained the Janus and prow design so weight is a great help in dating a coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>A similar dot system was used in Italy/Sicily by Greek cities based on an at first silver and later bronze litra and Greek names hemilitron, trias, tetras, hexas etc.&nbsp; My Syracuse silver hexas weighs about .05g and has two dots.&nbsp; To the best of my knowledge they did not strike a one dot silver.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>You can tell when a dealer is an amateur in these things because many confuse the triens with four dots with the quadrans which as three.&nbsp; The dots refer to the twelfths so a fourth is 3/12 while a third is 4/12.&nbsp; This would not happen if these guys had paid attention in fourth grade math class.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in