(Song 05) Let's live, my Lesbia

• 1. This is often translated as a penny or even as a farthing, but: when the denarius was introduced into Roman coinage in 211 BCE it was at the value 10 as. When Augustus became emperor in 27 BCE it was worth 16 as, even though the denarius had itself been significantlty reduced in value as the propostion of silver in the coin was continually reduced and and so was the size an weight of the coin. So probably in about 60 BCE (which is roughly when this poem was written) the as was worth about a 14th of a denarius. An at that time a denarius was maybe a about one and a half days pay for an unexperienced and as yet untrained legionary in peace-time. So that single as was worth about a tenth of a day's pay for a raw new recruit to the army - that's rather more money than a penny or a farthing, probably nearer (for Romans in about 60 BCE) a couple of pounds or or euros or dollars in terms of purchasing power for cheap food and cheap booze. Still less than any one of those severe old men or of course than Catullus himself would probably spend on breakfast drinks. Of course when it was translated as "a penny" several hundred years ago, a penny was a lot more money that it is today, so it wasn't wrong then; but it's a pity that people are still repeating that this century when a penny is worth maybe less than a thousandth of what it was when someone made that early translation.