I was consulting an old blog post for another footnote and noticed this funny command from Cicero to get money from Moneta to let him take a reasonable sum with him as he travels to join Pompey.

I of course went first to Shackleton Bailey’s commentary which pointed me to his fanciful restoration of Att. 15.15 with another reference to Moneta and the idea that the temple served as a bank.

Luckily Woytek 2003 has sensible things to say correcting this view and others.

I still feel I’m not positive that I understand what is going on in the passage. First we need to remember that Philotimus is deeply in debt to Cicero, cf. Att. 7.3.7 Dec 50. So it may be a statement that he needs to pay up at whatever inconvenience be it divine intervention or extortionate usury. I think this is my preferred explanation.

“I don’t care your debtors aren’t pay up, Pray to Moneta, As I will extract mine from you come hell or high water”

Another possibility is that Cicero has some thought of taking fresh coin in some official capacity granted or presumed to have been granted by Pompey or the consuls etc. Pompey withdraws from the area of Rome in late January. The consuls sail to Greece 4 March, Pompey 17 March. Caesar summons a senate meeting on the outskirts of Rome 1 April and shortly there after before leaves for Spain. In the interim he seized the public treasury. For dates and sources see Attalus

Many had spoken in favour of a massacre: and Caesar himself was not by nature and inclination averse to cruelty, but he thought that mild measures would win popularity. But, if he lost popular favour, he would be cruel. He had been put out when he found that he had offended the populace itself by seizing the treasury: and so, though he had fully made up his mind to harangue the people before leaving, he had not ventured to do so, and he had gone off in a very disturbed state of mind

Att. 10.4.8

So there was still coined money to be had from the government, but this seems more outlandish an explanation as the viaticus (travel fund) is clearly personal.

Below is the last Pompeian issue struck by the Roman mint before they left the city and eventually Italy.

After Caesar’s arrival another Moneyer begins striking on his behalf at the Roman Mint:

In this chronology I follow Woytek 2003: 95ff.

And for fun notice the graffiti on both obverses in the field to the front of head, the second coin is in the form of ‘speaking lines’ . I thought I had a post on this but my searches are coming up empty.

For another footnote I wanted to remind myself of the primary sources on this episode.

Basically I’m thinking about ready cash vs. income and wealth derived from real estate.

Plutarch, Life of Sulla 12

Pausanias, Boeotia 7.5-6

Frontinus Stratagems 1.11

(Cf. Val. Max. i. ii, also mentioned Delphi as the source of the Apollo figurine; 3; Plut. Sulla 29)

Diodorus 38/39.7

Here’s the passage I was remembering (from my doctorate!)

Just for eye candy:

I promised to write something on the social war coinage within the next 12 months. I’m not engaged in the work now but wanted to keep this reference handy and have a place for similar future notes.

There is one chapter on coins but the whole is very relevant:

Pittia, Sylvie, et Loredana Cappelletti, éd. L’Italie entre déchirement et réconciliation : la guerre sociale (91-88 avant notre ère) et ses lendemains. Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2024. doi:10.4000/139nk.

If you want to see all the social war coinage, your best bet is IRIS populated with the BnF specimens and with Rutter’s citations for the few they don’t have.

More to come. Back to my lit survey for the article I’m working on.

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Next Day.

A colleague sent this note:

“Apropos Italia:, see the latest thinking by Crawford in ImIt I, 2011, pp. 67-74”

So I re read it. Most know but the standard work is.

I would sorely love a physical copy of this for my library but that is a pipe dream. I went looking for a copy of Crawford’s Roman Statutes yesterday and struck out for anything less than 2-3k. By heavens, Crawford is really the mind of last 100 years.

My other stray thoughts after a quick skim are that the Oscan legend uses something very like the apex, a diacritic mark I discussed fairly recently in Latin. And it has vowel reduplication for long vowels (cf. earlier post with classic example). The orthography, or writing culture, of the Italians was clearly part of the same cultural world as that of literate Latin. No surprise but exciting nonetheless to observe.

I was fixing broken links and images in this old post and I had to take a look at the bes or 2/3s coin = 8 unciae (RRC 266/3). When I see an old post is getting traffic, I will try if I can to check it is still working and correct what I can.

This led me to notice that the Tübingen and BNF specimens of this rare bronze type have a similar cut on the face of Bacchus. Similarly placed as well, but not exact. I suspect they may even have been made with the same tool.

Why cut the face of a bronze?! It cannot be plated or faked in that way. And it wouldn’t be mistaken for worn Roman silver with a weight of between 10-12 grams.

Is it to cancel it? Is it because the moneyer’s name is associated with Brutus and murder of Julius Caesar? Some other reason did it need to cancelled or counter-marked in some way?

Here’s the nicest specimen know:

EDCS-20200006 dated to c. 123 BCE to 112 BCE

The Latin word fiscus gives us the English word fiscal.

I’m delighted by the commonality of the term between the world of commerce and the processing of agricultural products.

The most common images of money bags are for smaller amounts and made of leather or cloth:

However cheese baskets (fiscella, the minature of a fiscus) look more like this, we think:

A Roman olive press looks like this:

Or like this:

Fabrication de l’huile et pressoir à huile. Bas-relief sur un sarcophage. D’après l’Archäologische Zeitung, t. XXXV, pl.

There are also screw presses but these are less common.

My point is that the fiscus as a basket must withstand the crushing weight of probably the first type of press above. AND let the liquid out without letting through bits of the olive flesh or crushed pits.

Cheese too needs to be drained of the whey while retaining the curd, especially in a fine fresh cheese like a ricotta, often by pressing.

The woven basket character is confirmed by another diminutive.

I’m also delighted in the first passage with all the discussion of sealing and labelling. It fits so nicely with the tesserae.

Tesserae Nummularia Posts

14 June 2014

23 October 2019

18 December 2023

19 December 2023

29 April 2024

30 April 2024

24 June 2024

I guess one day I’ll have write all this up as an article. One day…

This is a footnote in a draft piece I’ve been writing.

[I’m 5,000 words into the first draft of an article and think it might be good, also think it might be banal and terrible–such is the nature of writing.]

After removing 18 suspected forgeries, Coinage of the Roman Republic Online (CRRO) provides weight data on 259 examples of denarii struck between 53 and 50 BCE at the Roman mint, with a mean weight of 3.83 grams and relative standard deviation (RSD) of 5%. 3.83 x 6000 = 22.98 kg = 50.66 lbs.  By way of comparison RRC 350A/1 is dated to the Cinnan regime (c. 86 BCE) and is represented by 357 specimens in CRRO it has a mean weight of 3.84 and an RSD also of 5%. 3.84 x 6000 = 23.04 kg = 50.79 lbs.  At 84 to the pound this would correspond to a Roman pound of c. 322 grams

Here’s another footnote from the draft:

Plin. 33.46.  The Roman pound was not the same in all places at all times.  Most prefer 327 grams as the conversion to modern weights and measures and this fits well will the set of seven basalt weights found at Praeneste in 1907 which have a mean average for a whole pound unit of 327.7 with an RSD of 0.2%.  Crawford 1974 prefers 324 grams as the conversion for the Roman pound.

Yes, there are also mention of various stuff like batch control at the Roman mint. Yes, I used revised dating for what coins I included in the 53 to 50 BCE window.

Anyway. I got thinking about 5% tolerance number for weight variations and I wondered what gold was like as I’ve always believed gold was better regulated.

[Yes this was a distraction, but long columns of numbers are soothing as I trying to get words on the page and think thoughts more substantially through issues than I normally do here on the blog, so I’m allowing myself this moderate distraction before I go back to the article draft.]

The Sullan gold issue best represented in CRRO is RRC 386/4 (28 specimens, 25 with weights recorded). It has an RSD of less than 2%.

Sextus Pompey’s RRC 511/1 has 44 specimens with weight values and an RSD of 3%.

BUT, the Hirtius gold issue (RRC 466/1 – rather erratic style of die engraving) has 45 specimens is recorded weight value and an RSD of 9.4%

Look at Cicero’s name.

TVLLIVS – Nominative

CICIIRON – NOT nominative with that N; and the E has most certainly been copied from a hand written document as in Roman script the E is II

We can deduce that the engraver was using some document to get the details right but that there was no highly literate Latin speaker at his elbow tut-tutting about the niceties of what what being copied from one medium to another.

Fun! Back to my real writing. More on Cicero’s cistophori from a much earlier post, now out of date.

I’m trying to decide what precisely is implied by the term numeratum.

Early January 49 BCE (ad Fam. 5.20)

Cicero says he does not have even a 100k ready cash to pay to his former quaestor who is concerned about a book-keeping error, even if he wanted to pay him.

quod si mihi expensa ista HS [100k] tulisses, tamen, quae tua est suavitas quique in me amor, nolles a me hoc tempore aestimationem accipere; nam numeratum si cuperem, non erat.

March 45 BCE (ad Att. 12.25)

Cicero is looking to by buy a suburban estate. He doesn’t want to sell or trade properties and doesn’t want to pay too much interest. He can call in a debt for 600k sestertii and has another 600k at home (domi) and can pay some interest on the remainder of the cost to the seller.

mihi et res et condicio placet, sed ita ut numerato malim quam aestimatione. … unde ergo numerato? HS [600k] exprimes ab Hermogene, cum praesertim necesse erit; et domi video esse HS [600k]. reliquae pecuniae vel usuram Silio pendemus…

600k sestertii in silver of any coin denomination would weigh more than 1250 pounds.

It would fit in 3 standard five-gallon construction buckets if packed solid. With space between coins it would probably need to be distributed across four or five buckets. But don’t try to lift one of those buckets–you would put your back out!

Do we think Cicero really kept this laying around his house somewhere?!

What a hoard! The so-called Mesagne hoard has 5,861 coins reported. That’s just shy of 50 pounds of silver. By volume, if solid silver, that would fill just three quarter jars.

I think it is possible to have this much ready cash in a Roman house but as the numbers get bigger than this at what point is it preposterous to imagine the weight and volume in a private residence?

And, for context when Cicero flees to Epirus to join Pompey in 48 BCE he gets cash. This time explicitly in coins from Atticus’ people.

a tuis et nummorum accepi HS [20k] et vestimentorum quod opus fuit. (ad Att. 11.2)

So Atticus himself must have had a store of coins in Epirus far exceeding this amount. Now we must imagine Cicero and his staff (and enslaved persons) carrying around 42 pounds or more of silver with them. Sounds incredibly awkward for whomever had the burden. This was only slightly less than the Mesagne hoard as reported.

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I’m dropping this here as it seems to also deal with the physicality of money:

nunc omnia ista iacere puto propter nummorum caritatem. (ad Att. 11.9, 17 March 49 BCE)

Coins themselves are dear, so by extension Cicero thinks if Atticus can pay in coin he can get a better price on the estate he is contemplating purchasing.

Shackleton Bailey calls it a coin shortage, but that cannot be quite right. As the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar looms everyone wants greater liquidity as they don’t know how the credit system or real estate values may be effected. The latter were particularly vulnerable to confiscation or devaluation through destruction. Romans seem to have keep a huge amount of their assets tied up in property investments. So cash becomes king as it is portable.

There is a potential reference to the same situation in:

omnia scilicet nunc minoris. [ad Att. 13.31, 28 May 45 BCE]

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versuram scribis esse faciendam mensum quinque, id est ad Kal. Nov., HS [200k] in eam diem cadere nummos qui a Quinto debentur. [ad Att. 15.20]

Here again we seem to have a question of large sum liquidity during the uncertain political landscape. A new loan is needed because COINS in particular must be repaid on specific date (1st of November). It is a lack of physical coin that is the concern. The letter goes on to discuss rental income for his son and his desire put together his own viaticus. Shackleton Bailey again oversteps in translation assuming this means a lump sum rather than simply a means of access money while traveling. Cicero is contemplating leaving Italy to escape the Political landscape of summer of 44 BCE.

See reference in first comment!

arachne.dainst.org/entity/1136018

arachne.dainst.org/entity/1252574

arachne.dainst.org/entity/5036621

arachne.dainst.org/entity/1249450

There are three methods of harvesting grain: the first, employed in Umbria, in which the stalk is cut close to the ground with the hook, and each bundle, as it is cut, is laid on the ground. When a number of bundles are formed, they go over them again, and cut the ears from each close to the stalk. The ears are cast into the basket and carried to the threshing-floor, while the straw is left in the field and afterwards stacked. In the second method, employed in Picenum, they use a curved handle of wood with a small iron saw attached to the end; when this catches a bundle of ears it cuts them off and leaves the straw standing in the field to be cut later. In the third method, employed near Rome and in numerous other places, seizing the top with the left hand they cut the straw in the middle … The part of the stalk below the hand remains attached to the ground, and is cut later; while the part which is attached to the ear is carried to the threshing-floor in baskets. … The grain should be cut when it is ripe; and on easily worked land it is held that the reaping of one iugerum is approximately a day’s work for one man—this should include the carrying of the reaped ears to the threshing-floor in baskets.

Varro, On Agriculture 1.50 (Loeb trans.)

no. 162 Fabatus (RRC 412/1)

trade specimen

Alice Sharpless writes: “Crawford identifies symbol as a sheaf of corn (i.e., wheat) but wheat does not look like this; more likely a young tree with stakes; RRC, pl. LXIX-162” and identifies it as a young sapling with stakes.

Papius (RRC 384/1) no. 20 (cf. earlier post)

The term for a group of sheaves stacked to dry is a stook.

I’d feel a lot more certain about this ID if I ever find an image or even literary description of Roman stooks.

Past me thought this object in front of the anvil might be related but I’m far from sure:

The same object seems also to be on the back of Fabatus no. 156.

Crawford called Papius die pair no. 36: “Ball/Whip and Hoop”

I like this description very much but I cannot get myself to believe it. And I think I might be stuck thinking about Roman toys to identify them and that need not be right. Alice Sharpless rightly was concerned about the two v intentional additions to the ‘hoop’. She called it a “torque”. She also noticed the very intentional flatness of the obverse symbol and decided to call it a discus. Again reasonable. What can I add? Only that I see the problems with Crawford but am not satisfied with Sharpless’ labels as I cannot come up with a reason for the pairing.

I’ve learned some other things I want to document but they really don’t get us closer to an identification.

Hoops are rolled with a stick not a whip, BUT that stick can have a very noticeable hook or bend in it. Some modern hoops have been manufactured with catch rings that do not interfere with rolling but this doesn’t seem standard. Those rings seem to be help one start the rolling.

Hoop rolling was of course a popular amusement in the ancient Mediterranean.

I have no evidence that Roman sticks had hooks or Roman hoops had rings. So I’m still not so happy with the reverse identification.

My other thought was that if it is truly a whip and we are really looking at a gaming theme for this set of control-marks. Then the most common toy whip is for spinning a top:

The Romans certainly also had spinning tops they launched with whips:

As a spinning-top, sometimes, that boys intent on play thrash

in a circle round an empty courtyard, turns under the whirling lash,

– driven with the whip it moves in curving tracks: and the childish crowd

marvel over it in innocence, gazing at the twirling boxwood:

and the blows grant it life:

Vergil, Aeneid 7.367ff. Kline translation.

BUT this doesn’t help us much, unless we decide the obverse symbol is the top of a top, but that seems a silly way to represent it. And then what do we do with the hoop?! This picture suggests a relationship, but perhaps it is just two toys shown together. Tops are some times spun inside circles, bowls or on other playing surfaces made to contain them.

Also see:

https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/D05E76F2-E59D-45C5-84EE-462E6567D317

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