In Case 1, the earliest monetary form attributable to the Roman world is aes rude, that is, shapeless pieces of cast metal used according to a precise weight system as early as the fifth century BC. Contemporary legal sources attest to its function as an equivalent of livestock, for example in the assessment or payment of fines. From the early third century BC (c. 280–275 BC), alongside the continued use of aes rude, cast bronze bars of regular weight (equal to 5 Roman pounds, approximately 1,500–1,600 g) begin to be produced. These bars, characterised by figurative types and occasionally by inscriptions (ROMANOM, “of the Romans”), constitute true monetary units, sometimes intentionally fragmented, intended for specific spheres of circulation.
The bronze bars displayed in Cases 1, 2 and 3, found in areas of Latium vetus, inland and coastal southern Etruria, and Abruzzo region, document the use of cast bronze in ritual deposits and foundation contexts. All the complete and fragmentary bars shown in Case 1 were discovered between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and entered the collections of the Museo Kircheriano. It is therefore possible to reconstruct a detailed framework for each object, from the circumstances of discovery through its subsequent collecting history – sometimes already dating to the eighteenth century – to the interpretation of its original function.