[425] Caesar, B. G. III. 13.
[426] Blacas, Mommsen, I. p. 177.
[427] It is worth noticing that Plutarch (Poplicola 11) translates the libral asses of early Rome by the Greek obolos; ἦν δὲ τιμὴ προβάτου μὲν ὀβολοὶ δέκα, βοὸς δὲ ἑκατόν· οὔπω νομίσματι χρωμένων πολλῷ τότε τῶν Ῥωμαίων, ἀλλὰ προβατείαις καὶ κτηνοτροφίαις εὐθηνούντων. It is quite possible that Plutarch embodies a genuine tradition that the original as and obol were the same. Otherwise like Dionysius of Halicarnassus he would have represented the asses by the value in Greek money of his own time. For he can hardly have supposed that at any time an ox was worth only 100 of the obols of his own time.
[428] So the word mark means not only a weight but is also used as a linear measure = 48 alen, and also as a measure of area, as in the term arable mark etc. See [Appendix].
[429] Many of the Roman unciae in the British Museum are under 410 grs.
[430] ὁ δὲ νοῦμμος δοκεῖ μὲν εἶναι Ῥωμαίων τοὔνομα τοῦ νομίσματος, ἔστι δὲ Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ καὶ ἐν Σικελίᾳ Δωριέων.
[431] Pollux IX. 84.
[432] Evans, Horsemen of Tarentum, pp. 9-11.
[433] Tabulae Heracleenses (Boeckh Corp. Inscrip. Graec. 5774-5; Cauer, Delectus 40, 41) I, 122. αἱ δέ κα μὴ πεφυτεύκωντι κατὰ γεγραμμένα, κατεδικέσθεν πὰρ μὲν τὰν ἐλαίαν δέκα νόμως ἀργυρίω πὰρ τὸ φυτὸν ἕκαστον, πὰρ δὲ τὰς ἀμπέλως δύο μνᾶς ἀργυρίω πὰρ τὰν σχοῖνον ἑκάσταν.
[434] Boeckh, Metrol. Unters. 160, takes the Sicilicus as originally the Silician quadrans in the Roman silver reckoning. Cf. Mommsen, Blacas, I, 243. Hultsch, Metrol. p. 145.