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It seems to me that the Late Roman empire had far too many types of coins. Some regions minted their own coins. Others might have preserved older coin models due to distance or lack of communication with other central regions of the Empire (Britannia comes to mind, probably preserving coins minted a century or more before as means of circulation).
My question is: if by chance a commoner had a coin from a distant region, say, Eastern Europe, and travelled to the furthest corner of Suebi-occupied, modern Portugal; would the value be the same in both places, because of the value of the metal used to mint it? Or would it value less, since it wasn't used in circulation as much as, say, the Suebi's ruler head on a Solidus?
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It all depends on which coin from Eastern Europe the traveler would have. Also, barbaric coins were usually valued less than the Roman currencies over all areas as the barbarian tribes usually minted coins with less precious metal in them. An example would be the "Gallic Coins" minted by the Visigoths. They were valued at a far lower value than the Roman solidus so much that Majorian, in one of his laws, states that tax collectors were told specifically to accept Gallic Coins at a lower value than Roman gold because they contained less metal. Other coins of gold from different places were valued at the same amount though. That does not matter though when the Romans began debasing every one of their coins...
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Not sure what happened as I typed a reply and then it disappeared!
Barbaric coins were not valued less than "official" coins. Almost all late Roman hoards I am aware of contain many, many contemporary "Barbaric" imitations, so clearly the common man didn't care. The inflation was so high and the quality control so low that many late coins (Constantine and later) vary greatly in size, weight and strike. In fact we don't even know the name of those coins simply calling them by their size (AE 1, AE 2...).
Earlier, especially in the first century larger "barbaric" denominations were even counter marked making them official. Lots of "unofficial" Dupondii and Sestertii of Augustus and Claudius have been found counter-marked. As long as it was within the standard of the time it was good.
What does happen is hoarding of older silver denarii when the Antoninianus was introduced. It also happened during the monetary reforms of Nero who debased the denarius. Eventually the mint didn't even bother to put a silver wash on the coins as everyone knew they weren't silver. However gold remained at high purity for both the aureus and the later solidus, semisis and tremisis. These are often found with minimal circulation wear since they were not used for everyday transactions. The average person would be using small bronze coins.
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Quote:Not sure what happened as I typed a reply and then it disappeared!
Barbaric coins were not valued less than "official" coins. Almost all late Roman hoards I am aware of contain many, many contemporary "Barbaric" imitations, so clearly the common man didn't care. The inflation was so high and the quality control so low that many late coins (Constantine and later) vary greatly in size, weight and strike. In fact we don't even know the name of those coins simply calling them by their size (AE 1, AE 2...).
Earlier, especially in the first century larger "barbaric" denominations were even counter marked making them official. Lots of "unofficial" Dupondii and Sestertii of Augustus and Claudius have been found counter-marked. As long as it was within the standard of the time it was good.
What does happen is hoarding of older silver denarii when the Antoninianus was introduced. It also happened during the monetary reforms of Nero who debased the denarius. Eventually the mint didn't even bother to put a silver wash on the coins as everyone knew they weren't silver. However gold remained at high purity for both the aureus and the later solidus, semisis and tremisis. These are often found with minimal circulation wear since they were not used for everyday transactions. The average person would be using small bronze coins.
Okay, so bronze coins were used by commoners. Which one was used more commonly? So far, I've seen the Follis, Sestertius, As and Solii.
If Denarii were debased, but were the most common coin around before Nero's and Diocletian currency reforms, would they still be in circulation?
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So many little bronze and other copper alloy coins were used in massive amounts by traders and commoners. Some were quite large ( follis ) while some were minute ( minim ). And to answer your second question, by the time that their was a Suebic kingdom in Spain, there would be very few IF ANY Diocletianic coins in circulation and none from Nero's principate time.
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It really depends on what time period we are talking about. The First century sees lots of As', dupondii, Sestertii and denarii. By the second century the Sestertius becomes the size of the As/Dupondius and the silver slowly loses it's purity in the denarius. Republican Denarii of Mark Antony circulated for over 200 years and are found in hoards with coins of Marcus Aurelius. This was because they were of lower silver content when minted. They are almost worn smooth but still circulated! By the time of Marcus Aurelius they had the same silver content as the contemporary denarii.
Caracalla introduced the Antoninianus or "Double" denarius but it contained less silver than the denarius. People tended to pull the older denarii out and spend the Antoninianii keeping the higher silver content coins stashed away. But silver denarii from Hadrian to Caracalla are quite common and appear to have been the basic currency during this time.
By the time of the chaos after Caracalla's death the silver denarii give way to the debased Antoninianus and bronze silver washed coins. it's not until Diocletian and the tetrarchy that we get another proper silver coin the Argentus, but it doesn't last long. The common coin of this time is the Follis but it also quickly looses it's silver wash and weight and degenerates into the small common bronze coins of the Constantines and later.
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Jason I think the large Follii you are talking about are from the Byzantine era. A follis of the Constantine era is not very large, just a bit bigger than a US quarter.
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Oops I made it sound too large...
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Looking for 5th century information. As far as I've researched, it seems the more ancient a coin is, the rarer it is, and not necessarly means they're more valuable; but I didn't got into gold coins having lack of circulation to go out of value. So, say someone for some odd reason kept for his family an Aureus from Julius Ceasar. Would it be worth as much as a Diocletian one?
I'm mostly trying to figure out how would someone call the prices of something. Would they say, for instance, they sell a chicken for X Denarii, or Follii? I know it's kind of hard to judge the currencies because of inflation and how out of control things were, but there must have some common-ground knowledge on this matter.
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By the time of the Folli, paying a debt in Denarii would be impractical, as they were worth so little that massive numbers were needed to make even the smallest payments. And also, just because a coin is older does not mean rarer, it can be totally different. For example, though a Constantinian bronze coin ( let's just use a random common issue ) is older than a Majorianic coin, the coin of Majorian is much rarer.
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They were not nostalgic like we are although some gold coins have been holed in antiquity to use as jewelry. A gold coin from Julius Caesar was an aureus (around 7.5g), a gold coin from the Constantine era was a solidus (around 4.4g). The value was in the actual gold.
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Would a Denarius be worth less than a Nummus?
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Quote:Would a Denarius be worth less than a Nummus?
There was value in the silver.
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The good is oft interred with their bones"
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I think Alan is referring to the totally debased Denarius.
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Quote:Alan post=363615 Wrote:Would a Denarius be worth less than a Nummus?
There was value in the silver.
So it was more profitable to melt the Denarii than actually using them as a currency.
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