Roman Republican Currency - Cast Bronze Coinage

Cast Bronze Coinage

According to Pomponius, a lawyer who lived during the 2nd century AD, the position of tresviri monetalis was established in 289 BC, but this date seems to be far too early, and if they did not come into existence during the Second Punic War, the formation of a formal college may not have occurred until some time after 200 BC The three members of this committee were officially known as the "tres viri aere argento auro flando feriundo" ("the three men responsible for casting and striking bronze, silver and gold"), a lengthy title that was almost always abbreviated to "III.V.A.A.A.F.F.". Julius Caesar briefly raised their number to four.

According to Suidas, the mint was located in (or at least near) the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline Hill. By this time Rome was familiar with coinage, as it had been introduced to Italy in the Greek colonies of Metapontum, Croton, and Sybaris before 500 BC and Neapolis ca 450 BC. Rome had conquered a large portion of central Italy, giving it large quantities of bronze, but little silver.

A system of heavy cast leaded bronze coinage was introduced; these issues are known as aes grave (heavy bronze) by numismatists. Stylistically the coins were distinctly Roman and, due to both their size and their being cast rather than struck, crude compared to the coinage elsewhere around the Mediterranean at the time. The standard coin was the as; the word as referred to a coin and also to a unit of weight – in fact, as could also mean any unit – of length, area, and sometimes just the number one.

The bronze coinage was initially a fiduciary currency rather than a token currency, based on the "libral standard" where the as weighed one Roman pound (libra) with fractions in units of Roman ounces (unciae), with 12 unciae in a libra. The "uncia" was thus also both a weight and a coin of the weight. This changed when the weight of the aes grave was decreased to approximately 10 unciae ca 270 BC (the "light libral standard", remaining at that level until 225 BC, then suddenly to 5 unciae (the "semi-libral standard") c. the start of the second Punic war in 218 BC, finally falling to 1.5–1 unciae around 211 BC.

In addition to the as and its fractions, multiples of the as were also produced. Fractions were much more common than asses and their multiples during the period of aes grave. By the time of the semi-libral standard, the smaller denominations such as the uncia and semuncia were struck rather than cast. A variety of less common denominations were minted over time; those found in Crawford (1974) are listed here.