Cheatsheet: Roman currency, debasement, wages, inflation, etc.

[guy]

Here's an excellent cheat sheet and summary about the Roman economy recently brought to my attention:

http://www.tulane.edu/~august/handouts/601cprin.htm

It's a well researched summary from Tulane University. It includes information about a wide range of topics. Even those of us who don't collect coins will find some of this information useful.

ROMAN CURRENCY OF THE PRINCIPATE
AUGUSTAN CURRENCY SYSTEM
FINENESS OF DENARIUS, 64-192
DEBASEMENT OF THE DENARIUS, 193-241
DEBASEMENT OF ANTONINIANUS, 238-274
MEASURES IN THE ROMAN WORLD
WAGES AND PRICES IN THE ROMAN WORLD (c. 50 B.C.-235 A.D.)

WAGES.
Roman soldiers received top pay for coveted full time employment. The legionary from 46 B.C. to 84 A.D. received
a daily wage of 10 asses or 225 denarii per year; Praetorian guardsmen received 2 denarii per
day or 720 denarii per year. Domitian raised legionary annual pay by one-third to 300 denarii. Septimius
Severus in 195 and Caracalla in 215 raised the annual pay to 400 and 600 denarii respectively.

Pompeian laborers in 50 B.C.-79 A.D. earned daily wages of 5 to 16 asses, but employment was seasonal. In the second century A.D. skilled miners in Dacia earned 6 to 10 asses per day plus room and board when hired on 6 or 8 month contracts.

Make a copy of this sheet before the link is lost. It's a good basic primer for anyone interested in the Ancient Roman economy, with information even for the expert.

Any opinions or criticisms would be appreciated.


guy also known as gaius

(I want to that the Ancient numismatist Doug Smith for bringing this link to our attention at another site.)










  Edited December 14, 2013 by guy

[caesar novus]

I hope a distinction is made between price inflation and monetary inflation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_inflation . Monetary inflation is the devaluing of money, but is most definitely not the same as rising prices or wages. Price inflation is influenced by additional things like resource depletion that may be temporary or avoidable by switching to an alternative.

 

The worst policies come from confusing these two... such as workers, pensioners, gov't payments factoring in "price" inflation rather than just "monetary" inflation. Same for the Romans; shed tears mainly for those who can't keep up with monetary inflation but not price. If the price of grapes doubles due to a bad harvest, switch to having servants pop plums in your mouth for heavens sake.

 

Same thing in the modern case; some get undeserved price inflation payouts for items in inflation indices that they don't need, and it simply robs the folks who don't get the undeserved boost (monetary inflation payout boost OK).

 

Edit: for instance, say copper mines are running low and it takes twice as much labor to extract the same amount of copper. This is price inflation, but not at all monetary inflation. No tears or pension boosts should be paid out to cover this increase in cost of living, or the system just goes berserk and consumes itself. Theoretically the whole working class could have to be devoted to supporting pensioners need just for copper (such as in San Francisco who enforces laws preventing substitution of plastic for copper pipes but doesn't enforce laws against copper theft).

Edited December 15, 2013 by caesar novus