As (Roman coin)
The as, Rome's fundamental unit of coinage, began not as a coin at all but as a lump of bronze. Before the Romans ever minted a disk, they weighed out raw bronze ingots in transactions. Then came rough disks with no set design, called aes rude. Only around 280 BC did the Roman Republic introduce the as as a proper cast bronze coin, large and heavy, bearing the two-faced god Janus on one side and a ship's prow on the other. What followed over the next six centuries is a story of constant shrinkage, reinvention, and remarkable staying power. How did a coin introduced in the early Republican period survive long enough to be revived by a Byzantine emperor more than a thousand years later? And why did its value keep shifting, its metal keep changing, its very weight keep dropping? The as outlasted wars, empires, and monetary crises, adapting each time the Roman world demanded something new.
Rome's earliest monetary system was built around the as with impressive precision. Below it sat a whole family of fractions: the bes, the semis, the quincunx, the triens, the quadrans, the sextans, the uncia, and the semuncia. Above it sat multiples: the dupondius worth two asses, the sestertius worth two and a half, and the tressis worth three. The uncia was especially notable because it doubled as a common unit of weight, linking the currency system directly to everyday commerce and measurement. After roughly seventy years as a cast coin, the as was reformulated as a sextantal as, meaning it was now set to weigh one-sixth of a pound. This reduction in weight happened in several stages, not all at once, and it coincided with a broader shift in how Roman coins were made: as the bronze pieces grew lighter, production moved from casting to striking, the same technique already used for silver coinage.
A silver coin called the denarius arrived at roughly the same moment as the sextantal as, and the relationship between the two defined Roman finance for centuries. The denarius, whose name means "tenner," was initially set at ten asses. Earlier Roman silver coins had been produced to Greek weight standards specifically so they could circulate in southern Italy and across the Adriatic Sea. With the arrival of the denarius, all Roman coinage shifted onto a single Roman weight standard for the first time. Then, around 140 BC, the denarius was retariffed upward to sixteen asses. Ancient sources attribute this adjustment to the financial strain of the Punic Wars, those long and costly conflicts with Carthage that stretched Roman resources to their limits. The retariffing meant each silver denarius now commanded more bronze asses, effectively making the silver coin more powerful relative to its copper counterpart.
When Augustus reformed the coinage in 23 BC, the as underwent a material transformation. It was now struck in reddish pure copper rather than the bronze alloy it had been before. At the same time, the sestertius and the dupondius were elevated to a golden-colored bronze alloy that numismatists call orichalcum, giving the Roman monetary system a clear visual hierarchy based on color. The sestertius had an interesting history by this point: originally worth two and a half asses, it had been re-pegged at four asses under the imperial system. The as continued to be struck through the entire imperial period, but it gradually slipped toward the margins. The semis and quadrans, the coins below the as, were produced only infrequently, and eventually not at all after the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The as itself held on longer, with the last recorded examples produced by the emperor Aurelian sometime between 270 and 275, and again briefly at the opening of Diocletian's reign.
More than nine centuries after Rome's Republican as first appeared, the coin found a second life in the Byzantine Empire under its Greek name, the assarion. Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, who ruled from 1282 to 1328, re-established the denomination and had it minted in great quantities during the first half of the 14th century. By this point the assarion was a flat copper coin of low quality, weighing approximately 3 to 4 grams. Its place in the Byzantine monetary hierarchy was firmly at the bottom: it exchanged at a rate of 768 to a single gold hyperpyron. One of the more unusual features of the assarion was that its designs appear to have changed every year, which is why surviving examples show such wide variation in their imagery. This annual rotation of designs ended in 1367, when the assarion was replaced by two other copper denominations, the tournesion and the follaro.
Common questions
When was the Roman as coin first introduced?
The Roman as was introduced around 280 BC as a large cast bronze coin during the Roman Republic. It replaced earlier forms of exchange including raw bronze ingots and rough disks called aes rude.
What images appeared on the Roman as coin?
During the Republic, the as featured the bust of Janus, the two-faced god, on the obverse, and the prow of a galley on the reverse.
Why was the denarius retariffed from ten to sixteen asses around 140 BC?
The retariffing of the denarius from ten to sixteen asses around 140 BC is said to have been a result of financing the Punic Wars. The change increased the silver coin's value relative to the bronze as.
What metal was the as struck in after Augustus reformed Roman coinage?
Following Augustus's coinage reform in 23 BC, the as was struck in reddish pure copper rather than bronze. At the same time, higher-denomination coins like the sestertius and dupondius were struck in a golden-colored bronze alloy called orichalcum.
When was the last Roman as coin produced?
The last as appears to have been produced by the emperor Aurelian between 270 and 275 AD, and again briefly at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian.
How did the Byzantine assarion differ from the original Roman as?
The Byzantine assarion, re-established by Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos around the late 13th century, was a low-quality flat copper coin weighing approximately 3 to 4 grams. It exchanged at 768 to a single gold hyperpyron and featured designs that changed annually, producing great variation among surviving coins.
All sources
4 references cited across the entry
- 1citationOxford Dictionary of ByzantiumOxford University Press — 1991
- 2webDeux As de Nimes au Musée d'Arles : A Roman Coin and the Myth of Anthony and Cleopatra | Pierre-François PuechPierre-François Puech — Academia.edu
- 4citationByzantine coinagePhilip Grierson — Dumbarton Oaks — 1999