Republican Coins in Imperial Times

[Viggen]

How would a merchant in Rome react in 400 AD if i go there to pay my purchase with a silver denarius i just found in the soil from Republican times?

 

Would people actually still know those coins in 400 AD , and know what those pictures mean? Would he go something like "oh boy havent seen a Gracchi in a while"!

 

 

 

 

[Maladict]

It's not unusual for Roman coins to be in circulation for a long time, even a century or two. Five might be stretching it though.

I think a merchant would recognize it as Republican (or ancient), if only because they generally contain more silver than current coins.

[Melvadius]

Of course if it was 'real' silver then I suppose that you could always try paying your taxes with it.

 

I understand it was fairly normal practice in the later Empire at least with gold coins to melt down high value 'pure' coins into bars and ship them back to Rome/ the nearest mint for re-stricking - especially when coinage was being debased.

[guy]

How would a merchant in Rome react in 400 AD if i go there to pay my purchase with a silver denarius i just found in the soil from Republican times?

 

Would people actually still know those coins in 400 AD , and know what those pictures mean? Would he go something like "oh boy havent seen a Gracchi in a while"!

 

Not being a coin collector, I'm not writing this with any authority.

 

First, there was no "Gracchi" coin. Portraits of living Romans didn't begin until Julius Caesar and we all know what happened to him. (The one notable exception was the Roman General Flamininus 150 years before on coins minted in Greece.)

 

Second, your older Roman Republican coin was relatively pure silver.

 

After Gordian III in AD 240, the increasingly debased denarius would have been replaced by an increasingly debased double-denarius (antoninianus) and later, the billon "radiate coin" also called an aurelianianus. Later coins had a lower and lower amount of silver until they were only coated with a trace amount of silver wash (less than 5% silver).

 

 

 

 

So if your merchant were savvy enough, he would recognize the coin's inherent value despite the coin's no longer being seen in circulation (as a result of coin hoarding and its demonitization).

 

 

guy also known as gaius

 

 

 

Source of the last graph: Brown, Augustus. (undated booklet) The Financial Collapse of the Roman Coinage in the 3rd Century A.D. 20 pp. 1 plate. Published by Augustus Brown, Kyrenia, Kingston, Canterbury, Kent. extracted from an article Crisis of the Third Century by Hugh Kramer at the Ancient Coin Club of Los Angeles site.

http://www.accla.org/actaaccla/kramer.html#Brown, Augustus

[Viggen]

I was refering to the Gracchi coin after (randomly) browsing this site with coins of Gracchi

http://andrewmccabe.....html#C137to107

 

and about roman republic and no potraits there is a long list here from Sulla, Pompeius to Brutus and their portrait...

http://www.romancoin...C-Republic.HTML

 

cheers

viggen

[guy]

I was refering to the Gracchi coin after (randomly) browsing this site with coins of Gracchi

 

and about roman republic and no potraits there is a long list here from Sulla, Pompeius to Brutus and their portrait...

 

 

I certainly enjoy a good discussion.

 

First, the "Gracchi" coin refers to the possible moneyer (the person who physically makes the coin), but does not have the image of the any of the Gracchi.

 

Interestingly, the coin description is incorrect:

 

 

http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=416217

 

The reverse type signs a decisive break with the traditional approach to selection of coin iconography. It should be regarded as referring to an early version of the story of the Forche Caudine, in which the unfavourable agreement with Samnites was honoured.

 

The reverse appeared with Rome's first gold coin minted during the darkest hours of the second Punic War:

 

 

We discussed the significance of this image on a previous post:

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11283

 

The obverse of the coin is an image of Mars, not one of the Gracchi brothers.

 

Second, all the coins minted in Rome with a living human portrait were made after the infamous Julius Caesar coin. Once the taboo against portraits was broken, coins portrayed various images of Romans. (Note the dates of the coin in your post.)

 

The Sulla coin is almost an exception to rule:

 

http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=3999

 

Although the obverse of the coin is an image of a helmeted Roma, on the reverse of the coin

 

...[t]he inscription L SVLLA IM makes it clear that Sulla is the figure in the quadriga. This aspect should not be overlooked, for it is an early example of a Roman coin depicting a living person-something that would eventually become a defining feature of coins of the Imperatorial period. In this aureus we have a precursor to the royal portraiture initiated by Julius Caesar nearly four decades later. Also, since this coin was issued either contemporarily or soon after Sulla?s triumphal procession through the streets of Rome, it serves as a document of that great event.

 

Of great significance was that this coin was probably made by a traveling mint outside of Rome. Even Sulla had a limit to his ego.

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited December 10, 2011 by guy

[rasiel]

then as now, real money never lost its purchasing power. there is actually historical proof that later romans preferred the older coinage - obviously because of the higher fineness. if a roman in 400 ad came across an old denarius he would have simply been able to buy with it whatever the same weight in contemporary siliquae would have bought. same goes for any other obsolete denomination.

 

ras