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8Our ancestors, however, were better pleased with the number ten, and hence made the denarius to consist of ten brass asses, and the money to this day retains the name of denarius. The sestertius, a fourth part of a denarius, was so called, because composed of two asses, and the half of another. Thus finding the numbers six and ten perfect, they added them together, and formed sixteen, a still more perfect number. The foot measure gave rise to this, for subtracting two palms from the cubit, four remain, which is the length of a foot; and as each palm contains four digits, the foot will consequently contain sixteen, so the denarius was made to contain an equal number of asses.
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