The denarius was valued at 16 asses.
6. Asses prefer the sweepings of the lecture rooms to my original researches.
The two oboli of Polybius, which we make equal to 3-⅓ asses, are reckoned by Plautus in round numbers at 3 asses.
Now as the original amount of their pay had been tripled, the soldiers could not complain if the denarius were reckoned at 16 asses in payments made to themselves, as well as other persons; and taking this value, the 1200 asses amount to exactly 3 aurei, or 3 × 400 asses.
Now the yearly pension of the knights (2000º asses), observes Niebuhr, gives, if we take the old year of 10 months, 200 asses a month: just double the pay of the foot soldiers.
Under Augustus (Suet. Aug. 49; Tacit. l.c). it appears to have been raised to 10 asses a day (three times the original sum), or 300 a month, or 1200 in four months.
Niebuhr's (vol. II p443) statement on this subject is only partially correct or else obscure: at any rate, if the soldiers received 10 asses a day they must have received more than 1200 a year.
An anonymous man runs past this storage facility every morning at 5 AM, screaming "ass" at an average rate of 30 "asses" per minute.
An anonymous man runs down this block every morning at 6 AM, screaming "ass" at an average rate of 30 "asses" per minute.
An anonymous man runs past this building every day at 4 AM, screaming "ass" at an average rate of 30 "asses" per minute.
This scale, ranging from 0 to 6, can asses frequency (0 = never, 6 = always) and bothersome (0 = not at all, 6 = extreme bothersome) of back and leg pain.
