Talk:Sestertius

Value in modern terms

I arrived here from the Commodus page. Commodus paid himself 1m sestertii for appearing in the colloseum, obviously a fortune. Yet I'm having trouble working out the value of a single sestertius in modern terms. One sestertius is worth 1/4 denarius, which was about the daily wage for an unskilled labourer, but what would it have bought in terms of, eg. loaves of bread, food, wine, clothes, accomodation, ...? Richard W.M. Jones 18:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a linl on the Roman provincial coins page to detail this, I prefer to think in third world turms instead of first world. Enlil Ninlil 07:21, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Crumbs, complicated! Thanks though, that page was very interesting. Richard W.M. Jones 08:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

According to Tacitus a Roman soldier would have been paid 10 As a day at the beginning of the first century. There are 16 As in one Denarius. A loaf of bread could be purchased in those days for about two As. 2001:984:209E:1:28DB:1EB3:A651:F900 (talk) 02:46, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The article currently states that sesterce is pronounced "ses-ter-see", but I have always heard it pronounced "SES-terse", and indeed, the OED recommends /'sɛstɜːs/, so I am at least putting up a {{fact}} for now. --Iustinus 22:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I've just looked the OED up and you're right. That was just how my Latin teacher always pronounced it, probably a back-formation from the plural.GSTQ 06:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It's very unlikely that a Latin teacher would have pronounced it the English way. Since it is a Latin word, it should be pronounced in a latin way. The "u" for instance is to be pronounced as "ou" like in the English word "you." Since the name suggests that a certain amount of thirds is meant the emphasis should lay on "ter." Ses-TER-ti-us. The "e" in ses and ter should be pronounced as in the English word "well" and the i should be pronounced as in the English word "wee." So, the pronunciation is: ses-TER-tee-ous. (there is much debate about how the t before an i should be pronounced. Some say it should be pronounced as ts, others just as a t.

In plural the last "ii," sestertii, should be pronounced as a double "ee." Ses-TER-tee-ee. 2001:984:209E:1:28DB:1EB3:A651:F900 (talk) 02:43, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Derivation of name

The name sestertius is a combination of semis, meaning half, and tres, meaning three, which when combined with an adjectival termination means three with the last equal half resulting in two and a half, the coin's original value in asses.

This is not very clear and rather wordy. I thought that the derivation of the name was more like half before three in common with other Latin forms:

• IV (roman numeral) - one before five
• IX (roman numeral) - one before ten
• nineteen - undeviginti (one before twenty)
• eleven twelfths - deunx (not sure of derivation but looks similar)

I'm not sure how best to reword it but the current wording is rather confusing. --B.d.mills 04:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing duplicated links and a size query

Following WP:CONTEXT style guidelines, I've removed some links showing overlinking. Generally, only one is needed in the body of the text.

Also -- I'm not clear on the convention -- is the only coin photo that is not life size the one specifically mentioning a size?

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 21:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Nero sesterius photo

Nero sestertius illustrated in article does not look genuine (especially rv). 83.7.178.116 (talk) 19:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Abbreviation

Where does the abbreviation IIS / HS come from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.243.199.239 (talk) 10:22, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

"two and one half" (semis). The H came from II because it looks similar.--2001:A61:20AF:D501:B866:7071:F3BC:8B38 (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Frequency of usage of terms

English-language sources routinely use the original Latin form sestertius, plural sestertii; [...]

This claim is being contested for the lack of citations, but it's quite improbable that there's a reliable source out there dealing specifically with this issue. The claim is confirmed by Google search: the results for "sestertius" vs "sesterce" are roughly 10:1.

Argument over "sestercii", etc.

[Copied from my talk page, since this more properly belongs here. I reverted the addition of the claim that "sestercii" is one of the regular forms, given in the lead sentence, as it was only supported by examples of its appearance, and is not a logical form, being neither the Latin form (sestertii) nor the plural of the anglicized form (sesterces), but a macaronic combination of the two. I also checked an ngram to see whether it was, unexpectedly, a common form, but it was not—though I didn't include this in my edit summary. This was the response I received. P Aculeius (talk) 15:10, 15 February 2026 (UTC)]

Would this satisfy you? Source is Alexander Del Mar’s History of Money in Ancient Time, in chapter: The Scipion System, B.C. 207-170.

The fact remains that during the period under review there was a silver sesterce, and this name sesterce, or its derivatives, as sestercii, sestercium, sestercia, etc., is almost invariably used for the expression of large sums of money in the documents and other literary fragments belonging to the period under review; a fact that indicates the sesterce to have been a full legal tender.

I think a reliable historical source (Alexander del Mar) stating that "sestercii" is one of the derivatives of sesterce that is "almost invariably used...." to refer to this type of coinage, combined with examples for academic, major international newspaper, and museum sources, are sufficient to support the claim that it is one of the variants routinely used in English-language sources. It's irrelevant whether the phrase is technically incorrect; we're not making any statement about the accuracy of the term or not, simply the fact that it is quite commonly used. This usage is also sufficient enough to register on Ngram views which show widespread usage in the 1800's, and a resurgence again as we approach the 2020s and in terms of absolute google results "sestercii" has approximately 1/3 of the results of "Sestertii" which is more than adequate to demonstrate it's usage as being within the same order of magnitude. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 06:26, 15 February 2026 (UTC) P Aculeius (talk) 15:10, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Alexander del Mar does not seem like a particularly authoritative source for this point; the chapter referred to (the original can be found on Archive.org; the web site linked above adds a number of scannos, such as "ees" for æs) includes a number of archaisms ("Caius"), grammatical oddities ("Lex Papirius"), and neologisms that never seem to have caught on ("the Scipion system", itself a grammatical oddity, since the English adjective is "Scipionic"). The assertion that this terminology continually occurs in Roman sources is obviously incorrect, since "sesterce" is English (you won't, for instance, find any of these forms in Lewis & Short, or Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, or the Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary). Del Mar gives a footnote with this passage, but it says nothing about the unusual forms he uses. And a search for citations to him on Google Scholar turn up a limited number of examples, indicating that his works and ideas lapsed into obscurity after their original publication, and remain far outside the mainstream (despite Ezra Pound thinking very highly of him).

But setting aside how authoritative he is, and looking in other sources: Webster's Third New International Dictionary gives "sesterce", plural "sesterces"; "sestertius", plural "sestertii", and "sestertium", plural "sestertia" (for a quantity of a thousand sestertii). The Oxford English Dictionary adds "sesterties" and "sestercies" in seventeenth-century writings, though all subsequent examples use "sesterces" or "sestertii". It mentions the plural "sestercia" as an English alternative to "sestertia", along with other variations ("sextertia", "sestertiaes", "sestertias"), but none of these are plural for "sestertius" or "sesterce".

I think it would be more correct to state that "sestercii" is an extremely rare variant, as shown by this ngram, in which it barely registers after 1825 (and before that, some instances are likely to be scannos) next to "sesterces" and "sestertii". Google Books returns a number of verifiable results, but they are widely scattered. If "sestercii" occurs in this article, it should be noted as rare. P Aculeius (talk) 17:01, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I have no objection to indicating that it might be a rare variant; what language would you suggest to that end? I wasn't exactly sure the best place to insert it into the body in the first place (i.e. after Sestertii where I put it; or after sesterces; or after all of them in it's own sentence). (Edit: or, looks like you've already put something into the article. Much appreciated.) ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 17:55, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I began from the assumption that the ngram showed virtually no use; but I started listing the scattered uses that I did find, and while they may still be inconsequential compared to the regular plurals, there seemed to be too many from the late 1800s to the present day to support the position that sestercii is too rare to mention alongside the other forms. So I went ahead and added it, both in the lead sentence, and below where the difference in usage was discussed. Though I still don't think that Alexander del Mar is a particularly good source—perhaps some dictionary includes it as an alternative spelling. I did not check the later OED, just the first edition, though it seems improbable that it was added in between. Still, a citation to a trusted reference would be ideal; individual uses, even cumulative ones, do not seem satisfactory. P Aculeius (talk) 19:56, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Popping in on a short layover while I'm traveling -- I'll do what I can to research other dictionary and/or less individualized citations. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 22:33, 15 February 2026 (UTC)