Historical-Political Dissertation on Coins, Both Functional and Commemorative

§. I.

§. 1. Etymology of coins. Before we approach the πραγματολογια discourse on the subject itself, a few things pertaining to ονοματολογια the naming of terms must be prefaced, since Epictetus well asserts somewhere: "The beginning of good instruction is the examination of names." Now, immediately regarding the derivation of the word NUMMUS coin, the Learned go off into different opinions, seeking its appellation either from νομος law, because it was provided by LAW that a coin, as a certain συνθεμα token/sign (i.e., a sign and tessera), should be minted in a public form, which would provide use and ownership not so much from the substance (or natural power of the material or of its substance) as from the quantity (i.e., the value of the coin), according to Paul the Jurist, l. 1. pr. ff. de contract. empt. Conf. the excellent and most useful dissertation of Conring on numismatics in correctly establishing any Republic, §. 5 & 19. Whence it is also called νομισμα currency according to Aristotle, Book 5 Nic. c. 8, because it does not exist by nature, but by νομος law, that is, by institution or law; or whose use and value νενόμισται has been established/sanctioned, that is, sanctioned by law, as Pasor explains in his Lexicon of the Greek New Testament. Or they derive it from numero number, because the function of a coin consists no less of number than of weight; or from Numa Pompilius, the second King of the Romans, whom they deem the first inventor of coins; see Georg Schönborn, Book 4 Polit. cap. 30, p. 342. Others, however, prefer to seek it from the Greek νῦμος or νόμμος (which Epicharmus, Aristotle, and Pollux used), and to write it with a double M rather than one, like Festus, to whom Vossius in his Etymological Lexicon agrees. But we shall not foster much of a dispute about the origin of this word, nor of the following synonyms, leaving that rather to the forum of Grammarians.

§. II.

§. 2. Homonymy. Therefore, we shall not be laborious in unfolding the homonymy of the word coin, inasmuch as in this genus it signifies any money whatsoever, as much that which is valid in use as that which is commemorative; just as it is established that the word Numisma coinage in a broader sense denotes a coin or money in general, but in a more special sense, a commemorative one, as much in antiquity as in the present day.