The siliqua (plural ''siliquae'') is the modern name given (without any ancient evidence to confirm the designation) to small, thin, Roman silver coins produced in the 4th century A.D. and later. When the coins were in circulation, the Latin word ''siliqua'' was a unit, perhaps of weight defined by one late Roman writer as one twenty-fourth of a Roman
solidus.
The term siliqua comes from the ''siliqua graeca'', the seed of the
carob tree, which in the
Roman weight system
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
is equivalent to of a scruple ( of a
Roman pound or about 0.19
grams).
The term has been applied in modern times to various silver coins on the premise that the coins were valued at of the gold solidus (which weighed of a Roman pound) and therefore represented a siliqua of gold in value. Since gold was worth about 12 times as much as silver in ancient Rome (in Diocletian's ''Edict of Maxmimum Prices'' of 301),
[Bransbourg, Giles. "Inflation and monetary reforms in the fourth century: Diocletian's twin Edicts of AD 301" in ''Debasement: manipulation of coin standards in pre-modern monetary systems'', edited by Kevin Butcher, 2020.] such a silver coin would have a theoretical
weight of 2.22 grams ((4.45 grams/24)x12 = 2.22 grams). This has not prevented the term from being applied today to silver coins issued by
Constantine, which initially weighed 3.4 grams and to the later silver (heavy) "siliqua" of
Constantius II of c. 3 grams, but it would fit the later "reduced siliqua" from after the reform of 355 which weighed about 2.2 grams. These are called "light" or "reduced" siliquae to differentiate them. The term is one of convenience, as no name for these coins is indicated by contemporary sources. Thin silver coins as late as the 7th century AD which weigh about 2–3 grams are known as siliquae by numismatic convention.
The majority of examples suffer striking cracks (testimony to their fast production) or extensive clipping (removing silver from the edge of the coin), and thus to find both an untouched and undamaged example is fairly uncommon. It is thought that by clipping, siliquae provided the first coinage of the
Saxons, as this reduced them to around the same size as a
sceat, and there is considerable evidence from archaeological sites of this period, that siliquae and many other Roman coins were utilized by Saxons as pendants, lucky charms, currency and curiosities.
See also
*
Roman currency
Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denomi ...
*
Hoxne Hoard
The Hoxne Hoard ( ) is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by ...
, a hoard of 14,212 silver siliquae dating from the early 5th century.
References and external links
{{Roman coinage
Coins of ancient Rome
Numismatics
Silver coins