Imperial Finance & Coinage Part Four

On pages 240-242 in Fergus Millar's The Roman Empire and its neighbors we are going far beyond in time from Augustus-"The Empire and the Third Century Crisis" is the name of the chapter. I thought it would be good to end this short series with some more information that might be helpful later too:

"The direct effects of the invasions were naturally very different in different areas. In Gaul, and to some degree in Spain and in Raetia on the upper Danube, there is widespread evidence of the contraction and fortification of cities. How profound a change this brought in the patterns of social life can as yet be only guessed. It is certainly the case that the life of the cultured Gallo-Roman aristocracy of the late Empire was spent on their estates rather than in towns. But in Britain too, which suffered no invasions in our period, the fourth century seems to have seen stagnation, perhaps decline, in the towns, but a development of luxurious villas.

Repeated invasions also came to the Danubian area and central Europe, reaching down to Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor. Sasanian invasions, and briefly the power of Palmyra, reached to central Asia Minor and the coast of Syria. These must have caused great destruction and loss of life; we also know of prisoners carried off to Mesopotamia by the Persians. We can date the beginning of fortified villas in the Danubian lands to this period, and have scattered evidence of destruction; but only at Athens is such evidence detailed and systemic. Once again we have little clear evidence of the direct effects of the invasions. They may not have been lasting; Antioch was taken by the Persians in 256 and 260, and burned-and in the fourth century, as we know from a wealth of evidence, was one of the greatest and most flourishing cities in the Greek world.

In Egypt and Africa there were border struggles, prolonged in Africa, but no actual invasions. The civil war of 238 in Africa and the suppression of a pretender in Alexandria about 272 may have had, at least temporarily, more serious effects.

Though the direct effects of the invasions and civil wars can only rarely be assessed satisfactorily in the present state of our evidence, we can take it that they accelerated, though may not have caused, some other changes in the workings of the State and its relations with the population. The first and most clearly traceable of these was the debasement of the coinage and inflation of prices. The two chief coins were the silver denarius and the gold aureus, w0rth twenty-five denarii. Debasement affected mainly the denarius, which was reduced to 75% silver undrer Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and 50% under Severus (193-211); after Caracalla (211-17) had issued a denarius of one and a half times the previous size, presumed to have been worth two earlier denarii, the silver content sank rapidly, reaching 5% in the middle of the third century. Aurelian (270-5) issued two series of silver-plated copper coins, whose value are still much disputed. Meanwhile, the bronze sestertius (four to a denarius) continued both to be issued and to be used as a common means of expressing prices and other sums until the 270s, and then disappeaed in the face of the inflation of prices. The inflation itself can be shown by the fact that the price of corn (expressed now in the debased denarii) was some 200 times higher in 301 than it had been in the first century.

It cannot, however, be pretended that we understand yet the details of the coinage system, especially in the period 270-300, or even essential elements of the background such as how the Imperial or city mints obtained their bullion. There are also indications that there was confusion and complexity at the same time; a Carian inscription of 209-11 lays down penalties for the illegal changing of money; a papyrus of 260 orders money-changers in Egypt to stop refusing Imperial coins; another of about 300, is a letter from an official in Egypt to a subordinate ordering him to spend all the official 'Italian money' at once, as the Emperors are about to halve its value.

We cannot yet state the causes of the progressive debasement and inflation. But it in its turn must have been a factor in converting the demands of the State on its subjects from cash to goods and services in kind. The basic pay in cash of the troops in fact, though raised successively, was not raised enough to keep pace with inflation, and in the late fourth century disappeared in favour of other forms of payment."

The next articles for awhile will be going back to Augustus and his era- this series went on a bit longer than I thought it would. I think if I do another short series before finishing up with Augustus it will be shorter. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!