The siliqua is the modern name—given without any ancient evidence to confirm the designation—to small, thin, Roman silver coins produced in the 4th century and later. When the coins were in circulation, the Latin word siliqua was a unit of weight or value defined by one late Roman writer as one twenty-fourth of a Roman solidus."Siliqua vicesima quarta pars solidi est, ab arbore, cuius semen est, vocabulum tenens."A siliqua is one twenty-fourth of a solidus, having its name from the tree of which it is the seed.