Imperial Finance & Coinage Part One

I should have been doing this all along by now-but better late than never! I would like to do articles (hopefully I can keep them between 1-3 posts long) about different areas of every aspect of Roman life. This article or set of articles is about the already mentioned treasury or Aerarium, coinage and minting in Imperial Rome. I got lucky when I found Fergus Millar's 1967 book The Roman Empire and its neighbors, for one dollar on sale at the library. The following information comes from pages 69-73 and 241-2 in this book:

"The very faint traces of evidence available can best be considered along with two branches of the 'central administration' (the term an exaggeration), the treasury (Aerarium) in Rome, and the mints in Rome, and the provinces. The study of the Aerarium suffers from the disadvantage already mentioned, the total lack of evidence about the transport of funds to and from it. The Aerarium itself, however, is fairly well known. It was the temple of Saturn on the side of the Capitol hill, which had served since the early Republic as the depository for the treasure, including coin, and documents of the State. Among the documents were financial ones, State contracts and the accounts deposited by provincial governors on leaving their province; provincial governors also 'reported' their apparitores, comites and others to the Aerarium, thus putting them on the list for pay, and (it seems) continued to do so even in the third century. But the officials of the Aerarium-quaestors in the Republic and then, after various changes, Prefects of ex-praetorian rank, chosen by the Emperor-never used these documents to make up general accounts or a budget for the State. Their functions were limited to keeping the cash and documents to making payments on the authority of the Senate or the Emperor, and the same judicial activities, which they were acquired to do in the Empire, over the recovery of debts. They did not administer or plan the finance of the Empire. The Aerarium is a prime example of the survival in the Empire-to the mid-fourth century, in fact-of the primitive and now inadequate insititutions of the city-state. To meet the deficiencies five separate commissions of senators were set up in the course of the first century, with the task of calling in revenue or limiting expenditure; none of them is recorded as having done anything. The management of State finance was left-in so far as it was managed at all-to the Emperor and his assistants.

In spite of the immense volume of evidence provided by the many thousands of coins surviving from the Empire, very little is known about the mints themselves and even less of the processes of decision which governed their output. Here too there was a surviving Republican element, the tresviri monetales (moneyers)-three of the posts in the most junior senatorial, or rather pre-senatorial rank, the Vigintivirate. These posts are attested until the mid-third century. Among the bronze and copper coins produced in Rome and circulating mainly in Italy and the West (bronze and copper coins produced locally in the Western provinces disappear by the middle of the first century) the majority are marked S.C. senatus consulte- 'by decision of the Senate'). The types on the coins, however, are very similar to those of Imperial coins-which include all silver-produced in Lyon until Caligula (37-41) and thereafter at Rome."

To be continued.....

Augustus Ascendant Part 14

The Temple of Saturn housed Rome's public treasury, the Aerarium, which two praetors were in charge of. History doesn't leave us any detailed information in the form of exchequer receipts from customs, duties, taxes and tribute payments from client rulers. Most historians think it is unlikely that enormous amounts of money circulated to and from Rome. This is because each province had its own treasury out of which would be paid local military and administrative fees, out of which would be paid local military and administrative fees, which would have left many of them without a large surplus to send to Rome.

The major drain on the empire's resources was the army, of course, without which, there would have been no empire! Rome had 28 legions and an equal number of auxiliary units to keep the empire together. For so extensive an empire this was barely enough. The fiscal burden of keeping this force functioning was enormous. A sodier's basic wage was 900 sesterces a year- this meant a total expenditure of 140 million sesterces per annum for these men. However, this didn't come close to the total cost of keeping the military machine going. There were large differences in the pay a soldier received for example: cavalrymen made more than ordinary infantrymen; and officers from centurions-on up to the legionary commanders (legates) who earned a very high wage. Then came the expenses for military equipment, the empire's fleets and the elite Praetorian Guard in Rome.

From Augustus on pages 233-234: "Augustus was enormously rich. His wealth came from his inheritance from Julius Caesar, from legacies (it was the done thing to remember the princeps with a generous bequest), the profits of the proscriptions and the civil war, and large estates in various parts of the empire. In his official memoir, he notes with satisfaction that he spent 600 million sesterces on land bought in Italy for his veterans and 260 million sesterces elsewhere. In lieu of farms, some demobilized soldiers received money grants, totalling 400 million sesterces."

"In addition to these phenomenally large sums of money, the princeps often topped up the Aerarium from his own pocket when it ran low of funds. In practice, it was difficult to distinguish between the treasury and the privy purse."

The different ways that Augustus maintained power and reformed the way the government operated were not very controversial during his time, nor were they seen as revolutionary by most, when viewed separately. A completely different picture develops when seen completely after the course of 2,000 + years. Four major developments that showed how far Augustus had revolutionized Roman government and the way Roman power was excercised were: 1) By quickening communications across the empire, boosting his judicial authority and streamlining the legislative and decision-making process, Augustus was drawing ever more power unto himself. 2) The Senate joined with Augustus in the decline of its actual power because Augustus increased the Senate's duties and prestige. By creating his design for imperial administration, Augustus didn't just create high-status and well-paying jobs, he also improved the quality of governance. The Senate was more than happy also to have the importance of the common citizens decline. 3) The citizens of Rome themselves happily acquiesced (most of them it would seem anyway) in their own dimuition in the eyes of the state. Once they had experienced life in Augustus' efficient, new and improved autocracy they didn't have any desire whatsoever to go back to the less wealthy and inefficient Republic. 4) Augustus Caesar planted the seeds of a growing public bureaucracy and increasingly used nonpolitician freedmen and slaves to carry out the mundane business of running a huge empire.

From Augustus on page 234: "Romans distinguished between imperium, power, and auctoritas, authority. It was evidence of the remarkable success of the Augustan system that the princeps was able to command obedience simply through his authority, and was very seldom obliged to draw on the brute power at his disposal."