As returns have fallen since then, these have been trading at a steep discount: last summer AES brought back some at 63 cents on the dollar.
Not long after the silver denarius, patterned after the Greek drachma, was introduced about 212 bc, the prior copper coinage (aes, or libra) began to be debased until, by the onset of the empire, its weight had been reduced from 1 pound (about 450 grams) to half an ounce (about 15 grams).
It consisted of aes grave, large circular cast coins of bronze all bearing marks of value, from the as (weighing one pound) down to its 12th, the uncia; the obverses showed the head of a deity, the reverses a ship's prow.
Cyprus was almost the sole source of copper to the Romans, who called it aes cyprium ("ore of Cyprus"), which was shortened to cyprium and later corrupted to cuprum, from which comes the English name copper.
Similarly, the first Roman issues, aes grave (heavy bronze), were ponderous cast pieces, the heaviest actually corresponding in weight to the libra, the Roman pound.
These aes signatum bars were halfway between aes rude and true coinage.
In the Aesthetic of 1901 (Aes.
'To intuite', he writes, 'is to express' (Aes. 11); 'intuitive knowledge is expressive knowledge'.
The perceived aesthetic qualities of anything vary with the states of the perceiver; therefore in speaking of the former we are really speaking of the latter (Aes.
