The Romans' earliest money seems to have consisted of cast ingots and broken lumps of bronze, used simply by weight. Their first coins were also heavy, cast pieces, either rectangular or round in shape. Numismatists call these coins 'aes grave', the Latin for 'heavy bronze'. The two-faced god on the obverse of this as is Janus, the god of beginnings and endings. On the reverse is the head of Mercury. |