Roman currency
Roman currency
Roman Coinage
Throughout the grand march of Roman history, from the early days of the Republic in the third century before Christ and into the venerable years of Empire, currency in precious metals – gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum, and copper – formed the backbone of their system of exchange. Yet, these coins were witness to a persistent woe; over the centuries their forms, values, and very composition were subject to a steady process of debasement and alteration. Particularly striking examples of this phenomenon emerged after the interventions of Emperor Diocletian, a trend that alas, continued throughout the long life of Byzantine money.
The Roman art of striking coins, born near the 4th century BC, left an indelible mark on the coinage of Europe at large. Even that familiar word, 'mint', finds its origin in Rome when, in 269 BC, a workshop for the fabrication of silver currency was established near the temple of Juno Moneta. She, that very goddess, became the embodiment of wealth and, curiously, her name clung to both money itself and to the place of its creation. Across the vast Empire, Roman mints were dispersed far and wide, sometimes pressed into the service of propaganda. The common folk often first gleaned tidings of an Emperor newly ascended through their change, coins emerging that bore his visage. Indeed, rulers whose reigns were tragically brief nonetheless took care to ensure their likenesses adorned coinage; Quietus, ruler of but a fragment of the Empire from 260 to 261 AD, saw no less than thirteen different coins struck from three mints. The Romans, for the heftier copper coins, preferred a casting process using clay molds – not for any lack of skill in striking, but simply due to practicality when handling such quantities of metal.
The Currency of Rome: From Republic to Empire
The adoption of metallic money, that curious notion of coinage, came rather late to the Romans. Mesopotamians, with their bars and ingots, were at it ages ago – seventh millennium BC, mind you! And those clever Greeks... why, they'd been minting coins since the seventh century BC as well.
'Twas around 300 BC, wouldn't you know, that the Republican government finally saw the light and adopted proper coinage. Now, those cities of Magna Graecia, those were keen on their currency for generations! During the fourth century BC, they minted vast quantities to fund their spats with those uncouth Italian tribes. The Romans were surely no strangers to the concept, even before it was their own. Those Punic Wars, though – they did put a strain on the national coffers, forcing Rome to get with the times, as they say.
The Roman system was rather unique in the ancient world. For instance, there was the aes signatum – "signed bronze" in their tongue. A hefty lump, measuring six inches by three and a half, weighing a good three pounds or more. Leaded tin bronze, a curious composition in truth. The Italians had some bulky metal currency, but theirs was aes grave, less refined and full of iron.
But it wasn't just the hulking bronze. Rome minted plenty of silver and bronze coins as well, aping the style of those Greek cities. Crafted in much the same manner as those out of Naples, even the designs showed clear Greek influence.
Republican coinage, one must say, was rather conservative. Mythological scenes, the visages of gods and goddesses – that was the standard fare.
The Imperial Age – A New Portrait on Power
A grand shift came with that Caesar fellow, may his shade rest uneasy! Placing his very own likeness upon the coinage - bold, indeed. Past moneyers had their ancestors depicted at times, but Caesar was the third living soul in Roman history to make such a claim. Revolutionary, some might call it. A tool of propaganda and personal aggrandizement, to be sure. Even before, live Romans graced coins at times, but as Clare Rowan (2019) rightly observes: "The appearance of Caesar's portrait on Roman denarii in 44 BC is often seen as a revolutionary moment in Roman history..."
And a powerful standard it set! His assassins came and went, but emperors clung fast to the notion. Ah, there were a few traditional types now and then - a deity here, an allegorical figure there - but the ruler's face was the new heart of the coinage. Why, in those Imperial centuries, the emperor was the state in flesh and blood, and his currency reflected his policies for all to see. Funny thing – the titles of moneyers still graced the coins, even into the reign of Augustus, but what their actual duties were… history seems rather mum on that account.
Absolutely! Here's the passage rewritten in a style more commonly found in late 19th-century England, aiming to retain the nuances and information of the original:
The Emperor's Visage: Coinage in the Roman Empire
The grandeur of the Roman Empire found its most potent expression in the Emperor's own countenance, gracing the realm's coinage. These coins were not mere currency, but potent instruments that bore his likeness across far-flung dominions. Often the emperors sought a semblance of the divine, linking themselves with gods through attributes or claiming favor from specific deities. Caesar, in his contest against Pompey, issued a multitude of coins bearing the images of Venus or Aeneas, thus proclaiming his lineage from the gods themselves.
The most audacious claim to celestial status may be that of Emperor Commodus. In the year 192 AD, he unleashed a series of coins where his bust was clad in the lion-skin of Hercules, that indomitable hero, and a bold inscription declared him the Roman Hercules reborn! Though excessive, Commodus's act reveals the ambition of many an emperor to wield their image as supreme authority.
Not only the ruling emperor, but heirs also graced the coins – their portraits proclaiming legitimacy and smoothing the path of succession. This practice remained constant from Augustus's time until the Empire's twilight.
To bear an individual's image on a coin, made legal under Roman law in the year 44 BC, was to invest it with the very essence of that person. Cassius Dio records the Senate's decree upon the death of the despised Caligula – his coinage was to be recalled, the very metal melted down. True or not, the tale reveals how deeply Romans were moved by the symbolism upon their coins. With biting wit, the philosopher Epictetus quipped, "Whose visage adorns this sestertius? Trajan's? Then I shall keep it. But Nero's? Cast it into the fire, for it is foul and corrupt!" While none would truly discard their money, the remark shows that a moral value was attached to the coin's imagery.
The coin's reverse, unlike the obverse's steadfast portrait, was a canvas of change. In the Republic's final throes, political messages, particularly in times of strife, were common. Yet, by the Empire's zenith, while potent statements remained, the reverse was more often the domain of stock figures - gods or personifications. While some emperors linked these images to their own deeds, many choices seem capricious; so commonplace were these figures that their very names could be omitted, their attributes enough for recognition.
Within this sea of the familiar, the exceptional becomes even more striking. Wartime often spurred atypical reverses: claims of liberation, conquest, or peace. Some were blatant propaganda, like a coin of Emperor Philip the Arab, hailing peace with Persia in 244 – though Rome in truth had been sorely bled of tribute to maintain it.
While sweeping statements about reverse imagery are perilous, for each emperor had his preferences, some trends emerge. During the latter half of the third century, the so-called 'military emperors' relied heavily upon traditional gods and personifications. Perhaps these men, often lacking strong claims to the throne, cloaked themselves in conservative imagery as a means to bolster their legitimacy. Yet these very emperors, traditional in their reverses, were often striking in their portraits – stern, armored, emphasizing absolute authority.
Value and Composition
Unlike the shillings and pence of our own dear realm, Roman coins, in their early centuries at least, possessed a remarkable intrinsic value. Whilst gold and silver issues bore the purest of metals, a coin's true worth would often outstrip its mere precious content – a distinction from the bullion we might recognize today. Alas, as the centuries wore on, the purity and heft of silver coinage did steadily diminish. Scholars of numismatics estimate a denarius to have held buying power akin to perhaps ten of our modern pounds sterling at the Empire's outset, rising to eighteen pounds by its twilight. A legionary might earn such a sum in one to three days' toil.
Egypt, until Diocletian's reforms, operated an isolated monetary system using a rather debased tetradrachm. Though its value might be reckoned against the denarius, its precious metal content lagged ever behind. Indeed, not all coins of the Empire glittered with gold or silver, their worth proving too lofty for the humble transactions of daily life. One might speak of a division here: coins of true intrinsic value, and those bearing merely token worth. This is borne out by the paucity of bronze coinage during the Republic; from dear Sulla's time until Augustus, not a single bronze coin saw the light of day! Even when those less precious coins were struck, quality suffered, their artistry often as crude as a Briton's boot heel.
Debasement
Diocletian's reforms swept away the old in one grand gesture, the much-debased antoninianus replaced by denominations as new and bright as their imagery. The concept of a Tetrarchy – a rule of four, each emperor his own domain – was mirrored in this grand upheaval of currency.
A stern, even severe portrait embodied the power of the emperor, not his likeness mind you, but a grand abstraction of authority. Reverses were as universal: the spirit, the very genius of Rome itself. Here then, with new coins and a new order, Diocletian sought to restore peace to a realm wracked by a grim century of war and strife. Our Emperor appears as one of many, yet potent all the same, and Rome's spirit is extolled to unify all men. Gone are the specific deities of old; instead, reverses sing of Rome's glory, the legion's might, victory against the barbarian hordes, a return of good times, and, always, the greatness of the emperor.
Such themes endured even with the ascendance of the Christian faith. Subtle imagery appeared, Christograms adorning standards, but with scarce few exceptions, nothing overtly Christian broke the established mold. Thus it remained from Constantine's day to the Empire's very end – portraits near indistinguishable, and proclamations of a greatness all but faded.
The denarius, from its birth years before 211 BC to its last gasps in the third century, was the Empire's heartblood. Yet, it was a currency plagued by debasement, its purity waxing and waning with Rome's own fortunes. Though the precise cause may vex the scholar, we can wager that scarcity of precious metals and the Empire's oft precarious finances played their cursed roles.
The denarius, that steadfast emblem of Roman commerce, was not immune to the vicissitudes of time and empire. Though a theoretical standard of purity existed as an ideal, it was seldom attained in practice, save for seasons of tranquillity. The strains of war, as ever, proved a dire inducement for the debasement of the coinage. Witness the denarii struck by Marc Antony, those harried coins meant to feed his legions in the contest against Octavian. Smaller were they than their sterling brethren, composed of a silver lamentably adulterated. The obverse depicts Antony's galley, a defiant symbol upon these tarnished coins; the reverse, the proud name of the legion it was minted to serve. Such debased currencies were grimly persistent – hoard evidence tells us they lingered in use for above two centuries!
Under the Julio-Claudians, a measure of stability prevailed, the denarius holding to a respectable four grams of silver. Yet, with the excesses of Nero in the year 64, a decline set in. Perhaps driven by the vast cost of rebuilding Rome in the wake of the devastating fire, that infamous emperor saw fit to diminish the silver content to a scant 3.8 grams.
Alas, the denarius’s fall from grace was but a gradual one, its purity sullied further still with the passage of time. Septimius Severus dealt a notable blow, and then came that curious phenomenon, the double denarius, known to scholars as the antoninianus after its popularizer, the emperor Caracalla, in 215. Though its nominal value claimed it worth two denarii, the truth of its silver content was far less grand. The profit to be made from such a duplicitous coin is manifest, but what the common folk thought of this trickery is lost to us. As the antoninianus proliferated, the honest denarius dwindled, ceasing altogether as a coin of import by the mid-third century.
War, that insatiable beast, was the ever-present blight upon the currency. In the latter half of the third century, with conflicts raging and the empire riven with strife, the antoninianus sank to a pathetic 2% silver, becoming base metal in all but name. The venerable aureus, that golden symbol of Roman might, held on better but could not avoid its own debasement – growing smaller, its precious core increasingly corrupted.
The descent of coins into near worthlessness was at last addressed by Aurelian’s reforms in 274. He set a standard for the antoninianus, decreeing it must be twenty parts copper to one part silver, a fact proudly stamped on the coin itself ('XXI' in the Latin, or 'KA' in Greek). Yet, even with Aurelian’s intervention, the slide continued unabated until Diocletian took the reins of power.
Diocletian, beyond establishing his Tetrarchy, also brought order to the chaos of the coinage. The aureus returned to a standard of 60 struck per pound, and a gleaming new silver coin – the argenteus – was introduced at the old Neronian standard. Boldly, he also minted a large bronze coin infused with two percent silver.
Alas, in 301, Diocletian issued his infamous Edict on Maximum Prices, a desperate attempt to impose limits on the cost of goods and services – a doomed enterprise if ever there was one. It was reckoned in denarii, that coin of ghosts, unseen in Roman hands for over half a century.
Why did Rome's coinage suffer such a relentless deterioration? The precise cause eludes us, but learned minds cite inflation, the bleeding of silver by trade with India, and the empire's own fiscal failings as prime culprits. Papyri reveal legionaries' pay rose during this age, yet grain prices soared higher still – it paints a bleak picture of hardship felt by the common man.
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