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The Aes Grave of Central Italy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The legendary nature of early Roman history as given by the writers of the Augustan age has been generally recognised; but, rather curiously, this recognition has not been applied to the consideration of the Italian and Roman monetary systems. The result is that even in the monumental work of Haeberlin on the aes grave the, chronological arrangement has been hopelessly confused by what is virtually an antedating of the predominance of Roman influence in Italy. There are doubtless kernels of truth in some of the traditions, such as the account given by Pliny of the origin of Roman currency, which was presumably an article of popular belief at Rome in his time: but a sharp distinction must be drawn between such traditions and the details which he and Livy give about the developments of money and circulation in the period for which they could find documentary evidence.
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- Copyright © J. G. Milne 1942. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 Haeberlin Aes grave : das Schwergeld Roms und Mittelitaliens.
2 Pliny, NH xxxiii, 43Google Scholar. The discrediting of Pliny's statement is due to careless reading by his critics, who do not seem to have realised that signare aes was a process quite distinct from flare et ferire : also the substitution of a full stop for a comma between the two clauses has obscured the fact that Romae in the second refers to both.
3 Harding King, A Search for the Masked Tawareks, 213.
4 Aes grave, 10.
5 Giesecke (Sicilia Numismatica) dates the earliest bronze of Himera to before 480. But this series is rare, and the larger issues are about 450. For political reasons the natural date for the transfer of the idea of a bronze token currency from Sicily to Etruria would seem to be in the last decade of the fifth century.
6 Cesano, Lorenzina : ‘Della circolazione dell' aes grave in Italia,’ Atti e mem. dell' 1st. Ital. di Numismatica, i, 47Google Scholar.