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Document Details :

Title: Roman Monetary Notations for Small Change
Author(s): DE BREE, Flip
Journal: Ancient Society
Volume: 49    Date: 2019   
Pages: 259-325
DOI: 10.2143/AS.49.0.3286888

Abstract :
This paper revisits and summarises the notations used for recording sums of money in Roman times, when the prevailing accounting unit was either the as, sestertius or denarius or, in the eastern part of the empire, the drachm. A series of searches in literary, epigraphical and papyrological sources was carried out, with a particular focus on tracing both the duodecimal and the — less common — decimal notations for small change mentioned in Lucius Volusius Maecianus’ Distributio Partium. The search results confirm their existence as well as their parallel use in the Roman imperial period. In addition, some mixed and unexpected versions of the Roman monetary notations were found. The dating of the various notations points to a one-to-one link with the main stream Greek-Roman monetary/numismatic history.

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