Question: What is the Latin Abbreviation for consul?
Answer: As you can see on many coins, Romans abbreviated consul COS. Even without the "n", this would seem logical and not likely to cause any trouble, except that there were two consuls at any given time in ancient Rome, so you are likely to see the plural of consul, consules abbreviated. The abbreviation for consuls is COSS. Another confusion may result from the use of Roman numerals following the abbreviation for consul. Should you read COS V, it probably means the fifth consulship, so when Marius was elected to the unprecedented seventh term as consul in 86 B.C., it would have been the first time the Romans could have used the abbreviation COS VII.
