sestertii

In the Augustean system, 1 aureus = 25 denarii = 100 sestertii (not 1000 sestertii as stated above).

Those emperors paid a lot of sestertii to make sure their bust came out looking like George Clooney.

That makes the featured article's claim that 35mil sestertii is $15 billion questionable.

Adjusting using seaside villa prices, 35mil sestertii (Diocles' wealth) is more like $7mil.

On the other hand, [2] claims that 1200 sestertii buys about 100 lbs of pork, so that means a soldier could expect to get paid about 1 Roman pig per year?

Also, this may have been the brass sestertii at 25 grams.

They are sort of derived from libra/sestertii/denarius ie Roman currency units.

This appears to be supported by the table at the bottom of this page [2], which claims that a seaside villa in Naples cost about 3mil sesterces/sestertii.

D.), a Roman centurion was paid 15,000 sestertii.

Given that one gold aureus equaled 1,000 sestertii and given there was eight grams of gold in an aureus, the pay comes to 38.58 ounces of gold Today, 38.58oz of gold would be a salary of $156K/yr.

It was pounds (£ - "L" for Libre), shillings ("S" for sestertii) and pence ("D" for denarii) - yep: Romanesque - so LSD.

As far as the "enough to pay the whole army for a few months" stat goes, the most common figure I can find for "annual pay for a legionary" during Diocles' life is 1200 sestertii, or 240 for 1/5 of a year [4].

"If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii." Seriously, I'm pretty sure I saw this same graffiti in a truck stop restroom stall once.