Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

AUGUSTUS.

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AURUM.

which is usually meant when the Augustales
or Augustalia are mentioned. It was cele-
brated iv. Id. Oetobr. At the death of Au-
gustus, this festival assumed a more solemn
character, was added to the Fasti, and cele-
brated to his honour as a god. It was hence-
forth exhibited annually in the circus, at first
by the tribunes of the plebs, at the com-
mencement of the reign of Tiberius, but after-
wards by the praetor peregrinus.—(2) The
name of two classes of priests, one at Rome
and the other in the municipia. The Augus-
tales at Rome, properly called sodales Angus-
tales, were an order of priests instituted by
Tiberius to attend to the worship of Augustus
and the Julia gens. They were chosen by
lot from among the principal persons of
Rome, and were twenty-one in number, to
which were added Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius,
and Germanicus, as members of the imperial
family. They were also called sacerdotes Au-
gustales, and sometimes simply Augustales.
The Augustales in the municipia are supposed
by most modern writers to have been a class
of priests selected by Augustus from the liber-
tini to attend to the religious rites connected
with the worship of the Lares, which that
emperor was said to have put up in places
where two or more ways met ; but there are
good reasons for thinking that they were in-
stituted in imitation of the Augustales at
Rome, and for the same object, namely, to
attend to the worship of Augustus. They
formed a collegium and were appointed by
the decuriones, or senate of the municipia.
The six principal members of the college were
called Seviri, a title which seems to have been
imitated from the Seviri in the equestrian
order at Rome.

AUGUSTUS, a name bestowed upon Octa-
vianus in b.c. 27, by the senate and the Ro-
man people. It was a word used in connec-
tion with religion, and designated a person as
sacred and worthy of worship ; hence the
Greek writers translate it by ScSaoTo;. It
was adopted by all succeeding emperors, as if
descended, either by birth or adoption, from
the first emperor of the Roman world. The
name of Augusta was frequently bestowed
upon females of the imperial family; but
Augustus belonged exclusively to the reigning
emperor till towards the end of the second
century of the Christian aera, when M. Au-
rclius and L. Verus both received this sur-
name. From this time we frequently find
two or even a greater number of Augusti.
From the time of Probus the title became
perpetuus Augustus, and from Philippus or
Claudius Gothicus semper Augustus, the latter
of which titles was borne by the so-called Ro-
man emperors in Germany. ["Caesar.]

AULAEUM. [SiPAitu-m.]
AUREUS. [Aukvm.]
AURIGA. [Cmcvs.]

AURUM (xpwoos), gold. Gold was scarce
in Greece. The chief places from which the
Greeks procured their gold were India, Arabia,
Armenia, Colchis, and Troas. It was found
mixed with the sands of the Pactolus and
other rivers. Almost the only method of
purifying gold, known to the ancients, seems
to have been that of grinding and then roast-
ing it, and by this process they succeeded in
getting it very pure. This is what we are to
understand by the phrase xpvaiov aTr«j>6ov iv.
Thucydides, and by the word obrussa in
Pliny. The art of gilding was known to the
Greeks from the earliest times of which we
have any information. The time when gold
was first coined at Athens is very uncertain,
but on the whole it appears most probable
that gold money was not coined there, or in
Greece Proper generally, till the time of Alex-
ander the Great, if we except a solitary issue
of debased gold at Athens in b.c. 407. But
from a very early period the Asiatic nations,
and the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the
adjacent islands, as well as Sicily and Cyrene,
possessed a gold coinage, which was more or
less current in Greece. Herodotus says that
the Lydians were the first who coined gold,
and the stater of Croesus appears to have
been the earliest gold coin known to the
Greeks. The Daric was a Persian coin.
Staters of Cyzicus and Phocaea had a consi-
derable currency in Greece. There was a
gold coinage in Samos as early as the time of
Polycrates. The islands of Siphnos and Tha-
sos, which possessed gold mines, appear to
have had a gold coinage at an early period.
The Macedonian gold coinage came into cir-
culation in Greece in the time of Philip, and
continued in use till the subjection of Greece
to the Romans. [Daricus ; Stater.] The
standard gold coin of Rome was the aureus
nummus, or denarius aureus, which, accord-
ing to Pliny, was first coined G2 years after
the first silver coinage [Argentum], that is,
in the year 207 b.c. The lowest denomina-
tion was the scrupulum, which was made
equal to 20 sestertii. The weight of the
scrupulum was 18-06 grains. The annexed
cut represents a gold coin of 60 sestertii.
Pliny adds that afterwards aurci were coined

Atuuwx Nummus (Pntisli Museum.')