Siliqua

The siliqua is the modern name given to small, thin, Roman silver coins produced in the 4th century A.D. and later. When the coins were in circulation, the Latin word siliqua was a unit of weight defined as one twenty-fourth of the weight of a Roman solidus.

The term siliqua comes from the siliqua graeca, the seed of the carob tree, which in the Roman weight system is equivalent to 1/6 of a scruple (1/1728 of a Roman pound or about 0.19 grams).

The term has been applied in modern times to various silver coins on the premise that the coins were valued at 1/24 of the gold solidus (which weighed 1/72 of a Roman pound) and therefore represented a siliqua of gold in value. Since gold was worth about 14 times as much as silver in ancient Rome, such a silver coin would have a theoretical weight of 2.7 grams. There is little historical evidence to support this premise. This has not prevented the term from being applied today to silver coins issued by Constantine, which initially weighed 3.4 grams, or the later silver coin of Constantius II, which weighed about 2.2 grams and 18 mm, and is sometimes called a "light" or "reduced" siliqua to differentiate it. The term is one of convenience, as no name for these coins is indicated by contemporary sources. Thin silver coins to the 7th century which weigh about 2 to 3 grams are known as siliquae by numismatic convention.

Silique

A silique or siliqua (plural siliques or siliquae) is a fruit (seed capsule) of 2 fused carpels with the length being more than three times the width. When the length is less than three times the width of the dried fruit it is referred to as a silicle. The outer walls of the ovary (the valves) usually separate when ripe, leaving a persistent partition (the replum). This classification includes many members of the Brassicaceae family, but some species have a shorter fruit of similar structure, in which case the fruit is called silicle. Some species that are closely related to plants with true siliques have fruits with a similar structure that do not open when ripe; these are usually called indehiscent siliques (compare dehiscence).

Silicles of Lunaria annua - MHNT

Silicles of Lunaria annua - MHNT

Capsella bursa-pastoris L. with silicles

Capsella bursa-pastoris L. with silicles

Indehiscent siliques of radish Raphanus sativus

Indehiscent siliques of radish Raphanus sativus

Siliqua (genus)

Siliqua is a genus of saltwater razor clams, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Pharidae, the razor clams and jackknife clams.

Species

Species in the genus Siliqua include:

References

External links