🔘 WHY DID THEIR ANCIENT COINAGE HAVE STAMPED ON ONE SIDE A DOUBLE-FACED LIKENESS OF JANUS, ON THE OTHER THE STERN OR THE PROW OF A SHIP? “Is it, as many affirm, in honour of Saturn who crossed over to Italy in a ship? Or, since this might be said of many, inasmuch as Janus, Evander, and Aeneas all landed in Italy after a voyage by sea, one might rather conjecture thus: some things are excellent for States, others are necessary; and of the excellent things good government is the chief, and of the necessary things facility of provision. Since, therefore, Janus established for them an ordered government by civilizing their life, and since the river, which was navigable and permitted transportation both from the sea and from the land, provided them with an abundance of necessities, the coinage came to have as its symbol the twofold form of the lawgiver, as has been stated, because of the change he wrought, and the vessel as the symbol of the river. They also used another kind of coinage, stamped with the figures of a bull, a ram, and a boar, because their prosperity came mostly from their live stock, and from these they also derived their affluence. This is the reason why many of the names of the ancient families are such as the Suillii (belonging to pigs), Bubulci (herdsman of oxen), Porcii (pig), as Fenestella has stated.” Plutarch, Roman Questions