brm_668870 - ROMAN REPUBLIC - ANONYMOUS Sextans

ROMAN REPUBLIC - ANONYMOUS

(Third century BC)

Initially, the coinage of bronze is poured. As, bronze unit, which corresponds to 12 ounces weighs about 325 g to 250 BC before the end of the first Punic War (268-241 AC).. This standard becomes semi-libral around 220 BC to the beginning of the Second Punic War (221-202 AC)., Ace weighs only 150 g. Smaller divisions, uncia, semuncia, quartuncia now hit instead of being cast. Weight alone is not sufficient to classify the series, the diameter also taken into account. Rapidly between 225 and 200 will go from standard to libral sextental, ie 325 g to 54 g facing the most serious political and economic that the Republic has known since its founding crisis. From 213 BC, when the ace is still cast other divisions of sextants are subject to semuncia.