Roman Currency
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*The Romans were famous for introducing a uniform currency throughout their empire, meaning that coins that were accepted at Hadrian’s Wall would also have been accepted as far afield as Rome, Carthage and Athens! Gold and silver coins were issued by the emperor, whilst brass coins would have been issued by the Senate.
*Roman Imperial Coins (27 BC-476 AD) The Roman Empire occupies a significant place in the history of Western civilization, and much of that history is reflected in the coins of the era. Collectible coins of Imperial Rome tell us about the emperors and the economic conditions of their times. This product category includes Roman imperial coins and accessories for.
*Almost every coin collector is interested, if not obsessed, with the worth of their coins. Despite the occasional, overly-serious numismatist admonishing the newer hobbyist in playing this down in favor of just learning and studying the coins the truth is that it is an integral part of the fun of collecting.
*Roman Currency AncientThe beginnings
Starting in the late 4th century B.C., the Roman Republic based a bronze (aes in Latin) coinage upon the weight standard of the Roman pound, which was about 323 metric grams. The heavy base unit, the as, initially weighed one Roman pound, while fractional coins were minted at proportional weights.
Although Roman coinage soon diverged from Greek conventions, its origins were similar. Rome, founded in the 8th century bc, had no true coinage until the 3rd. Roman historians later attributed coinage unhesitatingly to the much earlier regal period: some derived nummus (“coin”) from Numa Pompilius, by tradition Rome’s second king, and Servius Tullius was credited with silver coinage, as well as with bronze stamped with the device of cattle. Roman historical tradition, however, seriously confused the elements of the true picture. Rough, unworked lumps of bronze (aes rude) were certainly used as a metal currency from the 6th century, if not much earlier, perhaps in rare conjunction with very small quantities of unworked gold and silver, themselves also passing by weight. Simultaneously, standards of value appear to have been expressed in terms of cattle and sheep, as is clear not only from the derivation of pecunia (“money”) from pecus (“cattle,” or “sheep”) but also from the early assessment of fines in oxen and sheep. From this it was falsely concluded that bronze coins marked with the device of cattle existed from the 6th century. In fact, the expression of values in terms of cattle may have lasted, officially, into the 5th century, for it was not until the decemvirs (a legislative commission) codified the law and drew up the Twelve Tables (451–449 bc) that fines were fixed in bronze. This bronze still consisted of unworked lumps or, at most, rough bars of irregular weight.
During the 4th century bc, Roman contact with the Greek cities of southern Italy slowly increased; these included such prolificmint cities as Nola, Hyria, and Naples. The coinages of these cities consisted of silver didrachms, of which Rome presumably made use in any necessary dealings with them. A hint is given, however, of widening Roman monetary interests by two issues of bronze token coinage. These, though certainly not produced at Rome, may perhaps be regarded as the earliest coins in the name of the Romans, struck at Naples about 325–285 within the terms of their alliance and intended for use in Campania, as distinct from Rome and Latium. It is unlikely, indeed, that a mint in the proper sense existed at Rome before 289, the year to which Pomponius assigned the establishment of tresviri (a board of three officials) who should be aeris flatores (“bronze melters”); and this mint (in the temple of Juno Moneta) did not yet produce true coins but aes signatum, bronze bars (of about six pounds) lacking a mark of value but bearing on each side a clearly recognizable type (including cattle) and perhaps equivalent in value to a Greek silver didrachm.
These aes signatum bars were halfway between aes rude and true coinage. In 269 true coinage appeared. It consisted of aes grave, large circular cast coins of bronze all bearing marks of value, from the as (weighing one pound) down to its 12th, the uncia; the obverses showed the head of a deity, the reverses a ship’s prow. These were paralleled at mints elsewhere by similar cast coins; their types showed not, as at Rome, Latin deities but rather Greek (in the south) or Umbrian and Oscan. At the same time, there appeared struck silver didrachms, on the standard of the Greek silver coins of Campania, bearing Greek types but marked ROMANO or ROMA. Accompanied by small struck bronze token coins, these were issued from Campanian mints, and they probably continued to the Second Punic War, terminating in a new issue of silver coins of Roman style and types (marked ROMA), including Jupiter in a quadriga (four-horse chariot) from which their name, quadrigati, derived; they were imitated in electrum by the Carthaginians in Capua. The quadrigati were of the weight of the lighter Romano-Campanian didrachms and reflected the rising cost of silver at a time of stress; concurrently the cast bronze coinage of Rome dropped steadily in weight from an as of one pound to one of three ounces or less. Financial stress is similarly to be seen in the exceptional issue of gold units and halves. Toward the end of the Second Punic War the quadrigati were replaced by silver coins of half their weight, with a Victory on the reverse, and hence called victoriates. By about 190 a mainly silver coinage, Latin-inscribed, was in production at Rome and other authorized mints, accompanied by bronze coinage so greatly reduced in standard (and thus size) that it could at last be struck instead of being cast.
Aureus
1 of gold
Denarius
25 of silver
Sesterce
100 of brass [Orichalcum]
As
400 of bronze
It is nearly impossible to compare the value of Roman money to that of modern times, for a variety of reasons. The confident parenthetical conversions prevalent in the literature of two centuries ago now pale in the face of a variety of methodolgical quandries. Changes in the total stock and relative prices of gold and silver produce subsantial divergences between ancient and modern prices calculated in the two metals. While estimates of Purchasing Power Parity [PPP] exchange rates offer some basis for comparison, the absence of a remotely common basket of goods clouds the estimates.
Scholars have proposed quite diverging estimates of the monetary stock in Roman imperial times. According to Goldsmith, at the end of the Augustan age the magnitude was in the order of some 7 billion sesterces, 3 billion in silver coins (that is, 2,895 tons of silver) and 4 billion in gold coins (that is, 309,6 tons of gold), plus a small amount of subsidiary coins. A much higher estimate, almost threefold, was suggested, for the ’60 of the II century AD, by R.P. Duncan-Jones: roughly 20 billion sesterces, 880 tons of gold and 5,766 tons of silver.
Under a gold standard, exchange rates are not prices, but are more akin to conversion units, like 12 inches per foot, since under an international gold standard, every national currency unit would represent a specific weight of the same substance, i.e., gold. As such, their relationships would be immutable. Since 1492 there had never been a year in which the growth of the world gold stock increased by more than 5 percent in a single year. In the 20th Century, the average was about 2 percent.
During the 1990s the price of silver was consistently about $300 per ounce [$10 per gram]. At these prices, the aureus would be worth about $100, the silver denarius [25 to the aureus] worth about $4, and a sesterce [4 to the denarius] about $1. Taking the modern value of gold at about $1000 an ounce, an aureus would be worth about $300, the silver denarius [25 to the aureus] worth about $12, and a sesterce [4 to the denarius] about $3. As of mid-2010, the price of gold was over $1200 per ounce, placing an aureus at about $325, the silver denarius at about $13, and a sesterce [at 4 denarii] $3.25.
During the 1990s the price of silver was consistently about $4 per ounce [$0.15 per gram]. From 2005 through 2010 the price of silver averaged about $15 per ounce [about $0.50 per gram], briefly reaching as high as $20 per ounce [about $0.65 per gram]. With 3.9 grams of nearly pure silver, the denarius would have been worth about $0.60 in the 1990s, and about $2.00 between 2005 and 2010. By extension, the sesterce, one-quarter of a silver denarius, would have been worth about $0.15 in the 1990s, and about $0.50 between 2005 and 2010. YearPer c. GDP Index 1 $ 576 1.35 1000$ 427 1.00 1500$ 771 1.81 1600$ 889 2.08 1700$ 997 2.33 1820$ 1,202 2.81 1870$ 1,960 4.59 The Roman economy was no more backward than the early modern West European economy, and late medieval Western European economies were no more backward than 18th century economies. Only the introduction of machinery and modern sources of energy marked a sharp discontinuity and defined a new path of development from the first half of the 19th century onwards. Maddison’s view can be summarized by the series of data (in 1990 international dollars PPP) concerning Western Europe and covering almost two millennia.
In the early Empire, a rate of 4 sesterces [1 Denarius] is suggested as the daily wage by a variety of contemporarneous sources. The daily wage rate for male laborers in Rome under the late Republic was estimated [by Duncan-Jones] as 3 Sesterces. This would suggest a modern equivalence of about 1 sesterce = $0.50, that is 1 denarius = $2.00. Other such calculations could set the value of 1 sestertius as the equivalent of as much as $1.50.itemHS$$ / HSloaf of bread HS 0.5$4.00$8.00sextarius (~0.5 liter) of wine HS 1.0$10.00$10.00modius (6.67 kg) of wheatHS 7.0$1.33$0.20tunicHS 15.0$150.00$10.00donkeyHS 500$2,000.00$4.00slaveHS 2,500$0.00$0.00HS$.$.1wheat = 60 pounds per bushelAccording to one estimate, at the time of the early Empire, a prostitute charging 8 to 10 asses might have 5 sexual encounters each day [for a total daily income of about 50 asses], while a prostitute charging 2 asses might have 15 to 20 encounters per day [for a total daily income of about 35 asses]. In the late 20th Century, estimates by prostitutes ranged from 3 [sometimes 5 or 6] to 5-9 to 10 to 15 encounters per day. Sources dating from the early Imperial period give prices ranging from 0.25 as to 16 asses and perhaps more. Known examples are about equally weighted at below 2.5 asses and above 3.0 asses. [The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World] By one estimate modern out-call prostitutes charge a price for full service of about $150 [grossing about $600 and netting about $400 per night], while an inner-city street-walking prostitute might expect to make $45 for a half hour of ’service’ [grossing about $700 and netting about $150 per night]. [Strippers make more money than prostitutes] These ’estimates’ - both ancient and modern - are little better than conjectural, but are plausible rought orders of magnitude. These numbers suggest a Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate of [50 asses = $600] = 1 as = $12, to [35 asses = $150] = 1 as = $4.25. With the rate of 4 as to the sesterce, this would set the PPP value of the sesterce at somewhere between about $15 and about $50.
According to the price of gold, the sesterce today would be worth $3.25, by the price of silver, the sesterce today would be worth $2.00, according to general labor rates, 1 sesterce = $0.50, while prostitute prices would set the PPP value of the sesterce at somewhere between about $15 and about $50. Various commodity prices would suggest a value of possibly $10.00. Differing methods produce a range in the modern value of the sesterce at somewhere between $0.50 and $50.00, seemingly rendering any conversion to modern prices problematic at best.
To return to Crassus [played by Charles Laughton in the movie Spartacus], his wealth of 200,000,000 sesterce was said to be unprecedented. In 2010 Forbes estimated that Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu was the richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at $53.5 billion [Bill Gates was only worth $53 billion]. If the sesterce were valued at $10, Crassus would be worth $2,000,000,000. On the Forbes list of rich people, this would place him just behind #463 William Wrigley [chewing gum] but tied with #488 Charles Bronfman [Seagram liquor]. But if the sesterce were valued at $1.00, Crassus would be worth an entirely unremarkable $200,000,000.
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Roman Currency Ancient
Register here: http://gg.gg/x4plg
https://diarynote-jp.indered.space
*The Romans were famous for introducing a uniform currency throughout their empire, meaning that coins that were accepted at Hadrian’s Wall would also have been accepted as far afield as Rome, Carthage and Athens! Gold and silver coins were issued by the emperor, whilst brass coins would have been issued by the Senate.
*Roman Imperial Coins (27 BC-476 AD) The Roman Empire occupies a significant place in the history of Western civilization, and much of that history is reflected in the coins of the era. Collectible coins of Imperial Rome tell us about the emperors and the economic conditions of their times. This product category includes Roman imperial coins and accessories for.
*Almost every coin collector is interested, if not obsessed, with the worth of their coins. Despite the occasional, overly-serious numismatist admonishing the newer hobbyist in playing this down in favor of just learning and studying the coins the truth is that it is an integral part of the fun of collecting.
*Roman Currency AncientThe beginnings
Starting in the late 4th century B.C., the Roman Republic based a bronze (aes in Latin) coinage upon the weight standard of the Roman pound, which was about 323 metric grams. The heavy base unit, the as, initially weighed one Roman pound, while fractional coins were minted at proportional weights.
Although Roman coinage soon diverged from Greek conventions, its origins were similar. Rome, founded in the 8th century bc, had no true coinage until the 3rd. Roman historians later attributed coinage unhesitatingly to the much earlier regal period: some derived nummus (“coin”) from Numa Pompilius, by tradition Rome’s second king, and Servius Tullius was credited with silver coinage, as well as with bronze stamped with the device of cattle. Roman historical tradition, however, seriously confused the elements of the true picture. Rough, unworked lumps of bronze (aes rude) were certainly used as a metal currency from the 6th century, if not much earlier, perhaps in rare conjunction with very small quantities of unworked gold and silver, themselves also passing by weight. Simultaneously, standards of value appear to have been expressed in terms of cattle and sheep, as is clear not only from the derivation of pecunia (“money”) from pecus (“cattle,” or “sheep”) but also from the early assessment of fines in oxen and sheep. From this it was falsely concluded that bronze coins marked with the device of cattle existed from the 6th century. In fact, the expression of values in terms of cattle may have lasted, officially, into the 5th century, for it was not until the decemvirs (a legislative commission) codified the law and drew up the Twelve Tables (451–449 bc) that fines were fixed in bronze. This bronze still consisted of unworked lumps or, at most, rough bars of irregular weight.
During the 4th century bc, Roman contact with the Greek cities of southern Italy slowly increased; these included such prolificmint cities as Nola, Hyria, and Naples. The coinages of these cities consisted of silver didrachms, of which Rome presumably made use in any necessary dealings with them. A hint is given, however, of widening Roman monetary interests by two issues of bronze token coinage. These, though certainly not produced at Rome, may perhaps be regarded as the earliest coins in the name of the Romans, struck at Naples about 325–285 within the terms of their alliance and intended for use in Campania, as distinct from Rome and Latium. It is unlikely, indeed, that a mint in the proper sense existed at Rome before 289, the year to which Pomponius assigned the establishment of tresviri (a board of three officials) who should be aeris flatores (“bronze melters”); and this mint (in the temple of Juno Moneta) did not yet produce true coins but aes signatum, bronze bars (of about six pounds) lacking a mark of value but bearing on each side a clearly recognizable type (including cattle) and perhaps equivalent in value to a Greek silver didrachm.
These aes signatum bars were halfway between aes rude and true coinage. In 269 true coinage appeared. It consisted of aes grave, large circular cast coins of bronze all bearing marks of value, from the as (weighing one pound) down to its 12th, the uncia; the obverses showed the head of a deity, the reverses a ship’s prow. These were paralleled at mints elsewhere by similar cast coins; their types showed not, as at Rome, Latin deities but rather Greek (in the south) or Umbrian and Oscan. At the same time, there appeared struck silver didrachms, on the standard of the Greek silver coins of Campania, bearing Greek types but marked ROMANO or ROMA. Accompanied by small struck bronze token coins, these were issued from Campanian mints, and they probably continued to the Second Punic War, terminating in a new issue of silver coins of Roman style and types (marked ROMA), including Jupiter in a quadriga (four-horse chariot) from which their name, quadrigati, derived; they were imitated in electrum by the Carthaginians in Capua. The quadrigati were of the weight of the lighter Romano-Campanian didrachms and reflected the rising cost of silver at a time of stress; concurrently the cast bronze coinage of Rome dropped steadily in weight from an as of one pound to one of three ounces or less. Financial stress is similarly to be seen in the exceptional issue of gold units and halves. Toward the end of the Second Punic War the quadrigati were replaced by silver coins of half their weight, with a Victory on the reverse, and hence called victoriates. By about 190 a mainly silver coinage, Latin-inscribed, was in production at Rome and other authorized mints, accompanied by bronze coinage so greatly reduced in standard (and thus size) that it could at last be struck instead of being cast.
Aureus
1 of gold
Denarius
25 of silver
Sesterce
100 of brass [Orichalcum]
As
400 of bronze
It is nearly impossible to compare the value of Roman money to that of modern times, for a variety of reasons. The confident parenthetical conversions prevalent in the literature of two centuries ago now pale in the face of a variety of methodolgical quandries. Changes in the total stock and relative prices of gold and silver produce subsantial divergences between ancient and modern prices calculated in the two metals. While estimates of Purchasing Power Parity [PPP] exchange rates offer some basis for comparison, the absence of a remotely common basket of goods clouds the estimates.
Scholars have proposed quite diverging estimates of the monetary stock in Roman imperial times. According to Goldsmith, at the end of the Augustan age the magnitude was in the order of some 7 billion sesterces, 3 billion in silver coins (that is, 2,895 tons of silver) and 4 billion in gold coins (that is, 309,6 tons of gold), plus a small amount of subsidiary coins. A much higher estimate, almost threefold, was suggested, for the ’60 of the II century AD, by R.P. Duncan-Jones: roughly 20 billion sesterces, 880 tons of gold and 5,766 tons of silver.
Under a gold standard, exchange rates are not prices, but are more akin to conversion units, like 12 inches per foot, since under an international gold standard, every national currency unit would represent a specific weight of the same substance, i.e., gold. As such, their relationships would be immutable. Since 1492 there had never been a year in which the growth of the world gold stock increased by more than 5 percent in a single year. In the 20th Century, the average was about 2 percent.
During the 1990s the price of silver was consistently about $300 per ounce [$10 per gram]. At these prices, the aureus would be worth about $100, the silver denarius [25 to the aureus] worth about $4, and a sesterce [4 to the denarius] about $1. Taking the modern value of gold at about $1000 an ounce, an aureus would be worth about $300, the silver denarius [25 to the aureus] worth about $12, and a sesterce [4 to the denarius] about $3. As of mid-2010, the price of gold was over $1200 per ounce, placing an aureus at about $325, the silver denarius at about $13, and a sesterce [at 4 denarii] $3.25.
During the 1990s the price of silver was consistently about $4 per ounce [$0.15 per gram]. From 2005 through 2010 the price of silver averaged about $15 per ounce [about $0.50 per gram], briefly reaching as high as $20 per ounce [about $0.65 per gram]. With 3.9 grams of nearly pure silver, the denarius would have been worth about $0.60 in the 1990s, and about $2.00 between 2005 and 2010. By extension, the sesterce, one-quarter of a silver denarius, would have been worth about $0.15 in the 1990s, and about $0.50 between 2005 and 2010. YearPer c. GDP Index 1 $ 576 1.35 1000$ 427 1.00 1500$ 771 1.81 1600$ 889 2.08 1700$ 997 2.33 1820$ 1,202 2.81 1870$ 1,960 4.59 The Roman economy was no more backward than the early modern West European economy, and late medieval Western European economies were no more backward than 18th century economies. Only the introduction of machinery and modern sources of energy marked a sharp discontinuity and defined a new path of development from the first half of the 19th century onwards. Maddison’s view can be summarized by the series of data (in 1990 international dollars PPP) concerning Western Europe and covering almost two millennia.
In the early Empire, a rate of 4 sesterces [1 Denarius] is suggested as the daily wage by a variety of contemporarneous sources. The daily wage rate for male laborers in Rome under the late Republic was estimated [by Duncan-Jones] as 3 Sesterces. This would suggest a modern equivalence of about 1 sesterce = $0.50, that is 1 denarius = $2.00. Other such calculations could set the value of 1 sestertius as the equivalent of as much as $1.50.itemHS$$ / HSloaf of bread HS 0.5$4.00$8.00sextarius (~0.5 liter) of wine HS 1.0$10.00$10.00modius (6.67 kg) of wheatHS 7.0$1.33$0.20tunicHS 15.0$150.00$10.00donkeyHS 500$2,000.00$4.00slaveHS 2,500$0.00$0.00HS$.$.1wheat = 60 pounds per bushelAccording to one estimate, at the time of the early Empire, a prostitute charging 8 to 10 asses might have 5 sexual encounters each day [for a total daily income of about 50 asses], while a prostitute charging 2 asses might have 15 to 20 encounters per day [for a total daily income of about 35 asses]. In the late 20th Century, estimates by prostitutes ranged from 3 [sometimes 5 or 6] to 5-9 to 10 to 15 encounters per day. Sources dating from the early Imperial period give prices ranging from 0.25 as to 16 asses and perhaps more. Known examples are about equally weighted at below 2.5 asses and above 3.0 asses. [The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World] By one estimate modern out-call prostitutes charge a price for full service of about $150 [grossing about $600 and netting about $400 per night], while an inner-city street-walking prostitute might expect to make $45 for a half hour of ’service’ [grossing about $700 and netting about $150 per night]. [Strippers make more money than prostitutes] These ’estimates’ - both ancient and modern - are little better than conjectural, but are plausible rought orders of magnitude. These numbers suggest a Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate of [50 asses = $600] = 1 as = $12, to [35 asses = $150] = 1 as = $4.25. With the rate of 4 as to the sesterce, this would set the PPP value of the sesterce at somewhere between about $15 and about $50.
According to the price of gold, the sesterce today would be worth $3.25, by the price of silver, the sesterce today would be worth $2.00, according to general labor rates, 1 sesterce = $0.50, while prostitute prices would set the PPP value of the sesterce at somewhere between about $15 and about $50. Various commodity prices would suggest a value of possibly $10.00. Differing methods produce a range in the modern value of the sesterce at somewhere between $0.50 and $50.00, seemingly rendering any conversion to modern prices problematic at best.
To return to Crassus [played by Charles Laughton in the movie Spartacus], his wealth of 200,000,000 sesterce was said to be unprecedented. In 2010 Forbes estimated that Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu was the richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at $53.5 billion [Bill Gates was only worth $53 billion]. If the sesterce were valued at $10, Crassus would be worth $2,000,000,000. On the Forbes list of rich people, this would place him just behind #463 William Wrigley [chewing gum] but tied with #488 Charles Bronfman [Seagram liquor]. But if the sesterce were valued at $1.00, Crassus would be worth an entirely unremarkable $200,000,000.
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Roman Currency Ancient
Register here: http://gg.gg/x4plg
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