Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of sestertius.

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Examples

  • In the same year more bronze coins sestertii were minted with an image of a carpentum, a wheeled carriage harnessed to mules previously reserved for the exclusive use of the Vestal Virgins.

    Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

  • Subsequently when Sulla was in the possession of power and was putting many to death, a man of the class of Libertini, who was suspected of concealing a proscribed person, and for this offence was going to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, reproached Sulla with the fact that they had lived together for some time in one house; that he had paid two thousand sestertii for his lodgings, which were in the upper part of the house, and Sulla three thousand for the lower rooms; and, consequently, that between their fortunes there was only the difference of a thousand sestertii, which is equivalent to two hundred and fifty Attic drachmæ.

    Plutarch's Lives, Volume II 46-120? Plutarch 1839

  • In the early empire the price of an ordinary adult slave seems to have been about 2,000 sestertii (e.g. Horace, Sat.ii. 7.43).

    Mind the Gap 2004

  • Seneca (Ep.xxvii. 7) reports that one Calvisius Sabinus paid 100,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the Greek classics.

    Mind the Gap 2004

  • [159] _Sestertia centum_; that is, _centum millia sestertiorum_, or the ancient census of the citizens of the first class; for the neuter sestertia was used in calculations as an imaginary coin of _mille sestertii_ or ten nummi aurei.

    C. Sallusti Crispi De Bello Catilinario Et Jugurthino 86 BC-34? BC Sallust

  • When the Romans, therefore, had occasion to order more corn than the tithe of wheat amounted to, they were bound by capitulation to pay for the surplus at the rate of four sestertii, or eight-pence sterling, the peck; and this had probably been reckoned the moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average contract price of those times; it is equal to about one-and-twenty shillings the quarter.

    XI. Book I. Of the Rent of Land 1909

  • Three sestertii, equal to about sixpence sterling, was the price which the republic paid for the modius or peck of the tithe wheat of Sicily.

    XI. Book I. Of the Rent of Land 1909

  • Suppose you find your friend to-night, and place to his order sestertii in such amount as you choose.

    Ben-Hur, a tale of the Christ 1901

  • It was arranged then that a messenger should go at night to Thord's lodging-place with the four thousand sestertii.

    Ben-Hur, a tale of the Christ 1901

  • "I will take thy sestertii," answered a Roman youth, preparing to write.

    Ben-Hur, a tale of the Christ 1901

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