Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A silver coin of the Roman republic, first issued in 269 b. c. It was the quarter of the denarius. See denarius. In the quotation there is a confusion of sestertius and sestertium.
- n. The largest coin of copperalloy of the Roman empire. It was coined in orichalc, or brass, a finer alloy than the bronze of the as and of the usual coinage of antiquity. It was issued by Augustus and by some of his immediate successors, and was equivalent to four asses.
Wiktionary
- n. A large bronze or (rarely) small silver coin minted during the Roman Republic and Empire, valued at two and a half asses.
Etymologies
- From Latin sēstertius ("that is two-and-a-half"), from sēmis ("half") + tertius ("third"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The word sestertius signifies two asses and a half.”
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
“They also became the first living women to be pictured and explicitly identified on a coin of the imperial mint, a bronze sestertius produced in 37–38 showing three tiny full-length images of the sisters, each captioned by name but depicted with the accoutrements of three female deities personifying abstract qualities crucial to Roman success: Securitas (Security), Concordia (Harmony), and Fortuna (Fortune).10”
“That Didius Julianus would pay in Greek currency, not Roman, indicates to me that the smart money had already dumped the as, the asses, and the sestertius for drachmas.”
“A sestertius, another bronze coin, was worth four asses.”
“Lupus flipped him a second silver sestertius and headed that way.”
“I could give you every bribable senator's price down to the last sestertius.”
“When Sulla acceded to his request, Catilina became rich without needing to spend a single sestertius at the auctions.”
“No point in offering her for sale, she wouldn't fetch a single sestertius.”
“Batiatus had no money on the premises, not one single sestertius.”
“Sulla paid in full with a promissory note for twenty silver talents at his bank, the price of a funeral Rome would talk about for days, and did not count the cost, he who normally squeezed every sestertius so carefully, so ungenerously.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sestertius’.
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[Open] The Epos of Wordnik
Poems written by wordniks, for wordniks. (Look in the comments. No, they needn’t be in dactylic hexameter.)
sionnach, Kundry, alnwick, abandannad, sore eyes, sick chickens, Belgians with her..., sustainism, bilby, sumph, trews, sestertius and 4 more...
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The Grandeur That Was Rome
Friends, Romans, Countrymen: lend me your words
transpadane, palatine, capitoline, athenaeum, aedile, decemvir, cincinnatus, spqr, quirites, exedra, propraetor, Quirinal and 70 more...
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Coined
cent, penny, nickel, dime, quarter, farthing, shilling, halfpenny, twopence, threepence, sixpence, groat and 91 more...
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numismatics
Coinage and currency, especially traditional, historical and exotic.
florin, ducat, groat, écu, stiver, drachm, denarius, sestertius, talent, obol, farthing, shilling and 27 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for sestertius.
ruzuzu *Lines up a row of insect larvae. Their crime? Being tainted with tasty.* Oct 14, 2011
bilby It's Friday, shouldn't you be executing criminals or something? Oct 14, 2011
ruzuzu Bandicoots? Never heard of 'em. Oct 14, 2011
bilby Are you implying that bandicoots in your land aren't feted to plumpage with delectable veg*n tainted insect larvae? Witchettofu grubs are to die for.
*worried* Oct 13, 2011
ruzuzu Agreed (though I still had something up my sleeve about an aunt and a plume). Oct 13, 2011
leaden Mais oui, je t'en prie (provided we have this exact conversation again, as I’ve now spent all my French).
(Tutoyer gives me an idea for a list.) Oct 13, 2011
ruzuzu leaden: On peut se tutoyer, non?
bilby: I thought you were veg*n. Oct 12, 2011
leaden Ruzuzu: Je vous en prie.
Whispering (Is he OK? Should we call someone?) Oct 12, 2011
bilby How can one have too many tainted insect larvae?
*puzzled* Oct 12, 2011
bilby This is the dawning! Oct 12, 2011
ruzuzu Leaden: Thanks!
Bilby: I'm surprised you'd like a musical called Hare. Oct 12, 2011
bilby When the asses are in the Seventh House
And bronze aligns with orichalc
Then peace will guide the planets
But stuff that, let's hear moneytalk Oct 12, 2011
frogapplause I think bilby has eaten too much fermented fruit and too many tainted insect larvae. Oct 12, 2011
bilby Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in
Let the money shine, Let the money shine in
The money shine in Oct 12, 2011
leaden An HTML tag anywhere between the brackets disarms them. I usually use a set of span tags, e.g., “<span>stage direction</span>” renders as “stage direction”. (The placement of the tags doesn’t matter; “stage direction<span></span>” works just as well.) Below I used
[fiddles with a
<a href="/lists/the-universal-calculator">calculator</a>]
(Originally I also had span tags in there, but since you got me thinking about it, I realized I don’t need them in addition to the anchor.)
If you nest brackets, only the innermost are magic; if I had wanted merely a mundane, commonplace, humdrum (dare I say quotidian?) arithmetic-only calculator, I could have just typed
fiddles with a [calculator]
to get
fiddles with a [calculator] Oct 11, 2011
ruzuzu The least you could do is slap some brackets around "Diocletian razoo."
And speaking of brackets . . . Leaden, how do you make your brackets all non-linky like that? Oct 11, 2011
ruzuzu What did you just call me? Oct 9, 2011
bilby Sounds expensive. If you can't afford a whole ass, perhaps with a handful of bilbies you might get a decent piece of ass. Oct 9, 2011
leaden So that works out to fiddles with a calculator . . . forty bilbies per ass. Oct 9, 2011
bilby What kind of a two-and-half-assed comment is that?
I couldn't give a Diocletian razoo for your amphibipygian cheekiness! Oct 9, 2011
frogapplause Valued at two and a half asses... or 100 bilbies.
A large bronze or (rarely) small silver coin minted during the Roman Republic and Empire, valued at two and a half asses. Oct 8, 2011