On the As and Its Parts: Five Books on Roman Coinage, Weights, and Measures

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Original title: De asse et partibus eius libri quinque A learned Latin treatise in five books on Roman coinage, weights, and measures, taking as its subject the Roman as, the copper unit from which all higher denominations were computed, together with its fractions. Its central argument turns on a single philological correction in Pliny — whether the inflected form sestertia should be read as a substantive genitive plural or as an adverbial multiplicative — a distinction Budé names the cardo totius operis and which shifts the scale of Roman public finance by an order of magnitude. Budé verifies his reconstructions by weighing surviving ancient coins on a balance, measuring a cubic quadrantal vessel filled with wheat and water, and even interrogating a Parisian baker on his grain. From this metrological core the work widens into extended digressions on the debasement of coinage, usury and interest, Roman and Persian fiscal machinery, the neglect of letters, and a sustained denunciation of clerical avarice and the warlike pontificate of Julius II. It subordinates every ancient and ecclesiastical authority to the numen of Truth, aligns its critical posture with the ancient Ephectici (Pyrrhonian skeptics), and closes with a dialogue between Budé and the magistrate François Deloynes and a patriotic peroration dedicated to the genius of France. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

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Bud. de