Talk:Roman currency

Untitled

I object to the use of BCE/CE dating system in parts of this article. This is American political correctness. Jafdip (talk) 13:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

What a fascinating and detailed treatment of the subject! I can see that a lot of work went into this. Really terrific!

I made a number of minor edits. A couple of questions remain:

Under "Early Currency", we read: "Next a standardized currency cast bronze based around the domination known as the as, which weighed one Roman pound, and fractional values." I see no verb in this sentence. If I had to guess what's missing, I would insert something like "came" after "Next", and insert "in" after "cast".

In the final paragraph, a word appeared to be missing where we read about "the expense of continual ___". I inserted the word "wars" here. Hope that is right.

I wonder whether it might be useful to insert the word "minter" after the first usage of the word "moneyer". It was the first time I'd seen that word.

Thanks for the excellent article.

-- Jose Ramos 11:23, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for reading through the page and making corrections. I have corrected the sentence under "Early Currency" to read "Next came a standardized currency of cast bronze...". You're right, before it wasn't a complete sentence. Adding "wars" was correct, I guess I sometimes leave words out. I put "moneyer" in parenthesis after a mention of "tresviri monetales", because that is the official I was referring to. The term minter is usually applied to the person actually making the coins as opposed to the official in charge of the coinage (moneyer). Glad you enjoyed what I wrote. M123 19:34, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Diminished size of what?

"...valued at originally at 10 asses, it was retariffed in 140 BC to 16 asses (to reflect the diminished size of the as)."

I'm assuming "ass" is meant (as in "donkey"), but can someone clarify why ass size decreased before 140 BC?

Wikisux 04:18, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The as (coin) decreased in size. I can't comment on the size of their donkeys. Maximus Rex 07:55, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I stand corrected... and hopefully a little wiser. Thanks. Wikisux 08:34, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

second century BC

"These were used from the middle of the second century BC ...."

From the II Punic war, in the third century BC.

it:Utente:Carlomorino

Problems

There are many problems with this page, mostly having to do with covering too much territory in one page. For example, the first sentence is wrong:

The main Roman currency during most of the Roman Republic and the western half of the Roman Empire consisted of coins including: the aureus (gold), the denarius (silver), the sestertius (bronze), the dupondius (bronze), and the as (copper).

The aureus was not used in the republic at all; the sestertius was never made of bronze during the republic, the as usually was.

I intend to work on the roman republican coinage page for a while and try to improve that one smaller area. I suggest that this page simply point to that one; it is already much more accurate.

Disagreement

The value for the quinarius presented in the table disagrees with the article for the quinarius. --Savant13 00:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you please be more clear, cause I dont see it. The quinarius article is saying for the silver coin, it was always values at half a denarius, and the gold coin at 12.5 denarius. The Denarius article states the same. For this article in the Augustan Value the second table has 2 silver quinarius to 1 denarius left to right and half a denarius top to bottom. This table is based on the denarius and th value of other coins relating to it. Enlil Ninlil 03:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Weight Problem

...wars. The aureus had a fixed value of 25 denarii.

As time went on, in Rome, while the coin was 95% silver, it gradually lowered, finally to a quality of 0%. Roman coins were worth from a loaf of bread up to a new horse or lion depending on their value. The silver coins were worth the most whereas the bronze coins weren't as valuable or desirable as the silver coins.

Which coin was 95% silver? And by lowered in quality, what do you mean? If it does go to 0% silver, what was it made out of instead? Copper? Bronze? Lead? Wheat?
~ender 2007-03-09 19:46:PM MST —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.167.217.162 (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

It should be stated as a reduction of the silver content, this is debasing and is usually relaced by a cheaper metal,of mainly copper, Iron or brass. Lead from what we know wasnt that common as a coin and wheat, well wheat biscuits could be used. The denarius was the main silver coin, there were other's but they wern't as mass produced as the former. Lowering in quality would be the debasing. And a 0% silver would be a bronze coin, that some call a limes denarius. Enlil Ninlil 03:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Value

It would be interesting to see the value of Roman coins through the times, compared to say, the current value of the euro and the dollar. Shinobu 13:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That would be extremly hard to do considering the vastly differences in the type of economy, personal wealth, currency in circulation and how it was values welfare systems etc. But good luck if you can do it. Also maybe stick to one area for both analysis like Umbria or Spain to get a better insight. Enlil Ninlil 04:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say it was easy ;-) What one could do is use a consumer price indexing scheme.

As well as the all-items HICPs, a range of around 100 indices for different goods and services are made available. The main headings are as follows:

• Food
• Alcohol and tobacco
• Clothing
• Housing
• Household equipment
• Health
• Transport
• Communications
• Recreation and culture
• Education
• Hotels and restaurants
• Miscellaneous

In addition a series of special aggregates are released, including:

• The HICP excluding energy,
• The HICP excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco,
• The HICP excluding unprocessed food
• The HICP excluding energy and seasonal goods
• The HICP excluding tobacco

(from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-BE-04-001/EN/KS-BE-04-001-EN.PDF)

Apparently, these are then put in some kind of weighted average. If we could find that data, both current and estimates for the Roman period, there would be a few ratios of interest. The primary ones that spring to mind are:

• The absolute price ratio of a fixed amount of the goods described above. This could give a rough exchange rate.
• The ratio of the average expenses of an average person now and then. This would be a measure of how expensive life was.
• The ratio of goods (as described above) bought now and then. This could give a rough estimate of how pour/rich people were.

http://sdw.ecb.int/reports.do?currentNodeId=100000181 gives an idea of what percentages are current. These would of course have been different in Roman times. Current percentages:

• 59.2 Goods
  • 19.6 Food
    • 11.9 Processed food
    • 7.6 Unprocessed food
  • 39.6 Industrial goods
    • 30.0 Non-energy industrial goods
    • 9.6 Energy
• 40.8 Services
  • 10.2 Housing
    • Of which rents: 6.2
  • 6.4 Transport
  • 3.1 Communication
  • 14.4 Recreation and personal
  • 6.7 Miscellaneous

For a meaningful comparison, we would need percentages like these for the Roman period, and also price comparisons of actual goods and services. I guess we would need a historian for that data. Shinobu 19:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Detailed records of prices for all commodities in all Roman eras do not exist. What records we have are fragmentary and anecdotal, or represent only one specific context (we have purchase records over a long period for one particular Greek church, for example, but no idea how closely those reflect the normal market value for the same commodities). And the Empire was a big place: the buying power of a sestertius was different based on whether you were in Rome, Alexandria, Pompeii, Campania, or Cologne.

In any case, the vast difference in economies makes a simple "X denarii to the dollar" practically useless. For example, law and custom exerted several powerful pressures on grain prices, ensuring that they stayed artificially low. At the same time, commodities that we buy cheaply, like clothing, were made by hand from start to finish, making them much dearer than we expect today. So any conversion that gave realistic results for bread prices would be wildly inaccurate for clothing, and vice-versa. It may be possible to make the information we have fit into a modern inflation calculating equation, but the resulting conversion wouldn't be useful.

There's a much more detailed introduction to the inherent problems of converting ancient prices in Sitta von Reden's Money in Classical Antiquity (ISBN 9780521459525), if you're interested. Elmo iscariot (talk) 17:27, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Currency Debasement

"but the most common theories involve inflation" A debased currency cannot be the result of inflation -- it is, rather, the cause of inflation. (It increases the amount of currency chasing the same amount of goods.) And currency debasement is never "necessary" -- it is a stealthy alternative to raising taxes or cutting troops salaries.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.158.50.120 (talk • contribs) 12:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The text about currency debasement which reads "the massive debasement of the currency in the latter stages of the Roman Empire contributed to the destruction of economic freedom of the Roman people, and began a process of converting landholders to serfs." is of dubious neutrality. I would say it should be removed but as a placeholder I added the qualifier "According to the Austrian school of economics,". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Felipe.pait (talk • contribs) 19:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Aurei

In this otherwise excellent article there's not much attention to the role of the aureus. Was it used in daily payment, or was it something special, maybe a present for a distinct occasion? Soczyczi 12:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Commercial Links

I deleted all COMMERCIAL external links that were clearly commercial. PLEASE do not discriminate by removing some commercial links and leaving some. If you delete commercial links then delete ALL of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.11.162.141 (talk • contribs) 15:37, 17 January 2008

I have reverted your removal of links. Just because a link is commercial does not mean it should automatically be removed. Forum Ancient Coins for example is without a doubt one of the top 3 websites on ancient coins on the Internet. It should be there, removing is a great disservice to Wikipedians. Given your tone here, I would suspect that you had a link removed and are retaliating. If I'm wrong I apologize, however, in my opinion, a mass removal of links like this should be done by an established editor to have more credibility. Bobby ^{I'm Here, Are You There?} 15:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The uppercase I wrote is not shouting, it's for accent. I posted a link to show Roman paper currency. It's a gallery page, not a commercial, although (as most non-commercial pages) it has an non-intrusive link to buy those notes. I'd like to know if my link can be posted since it is to the topic and it is intended not to sell, but to display the Roman currency. The link is located at: banknotes.com/rom.htm And if you noticed I have a backlink to every Wikipedia page on my gallery pages. So my site brings a lot of traffic to Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.128.61.86 (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: I just deleted the following link: http://www.greekandromancoins.com/downloads.php It's a spam page made up for "domain parking service" and click-ad revenue, 100% revenue page leading to more click-ad pages, - you click on there and they get paid and you get to nowhere. I have no idea why you restored that link. Is it worth more than a gallery of Roman paper money? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.128.61.86 (talk • contribs) 21:52, 20 January 2008

I simply reverted a mass deletion by a fairly obviously upset anonymous editor. I did not scrutinize each link. The fact that you are so upset about this link leads me to believe that you are somehow affiliated with the site, is that true? I have removed the link again, please do not add it back. If an established editor feels it warrants being added, then let them add it. Just about every link on the home page menu links to items for sale. Every "[Picture & Info]" link on the home page links to a photo with a "pricelist" link right below it. This site is obviously mainly designed to sell. Bobby ^{I'm Here, Are You There?} 00:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

See:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#banknotes.com (permanent link)

--A. B. ^(talk) 03:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Tables

Should the first two coin comparison tables be in respect to the as, not the greatest denomination? The as was the sort of 'standard', as reflected by the other coins' names, e.g. 'semis' for half, 'triens' for a third of an as. Eric B 14:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps mention of the coinage of the Gallo Roman Empire too?

Gallo Roman(260-274 A.D.) povinces broke away from Rome. Had m,any coins Maybe a mention as well?ThanksJANUSROMA (talk) 04:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)PMEVEMn08100921stcnt.

Transfer some content to other articles?

Hy there. I think that this article is simply trying to do too much. I believe that some of its content could be transferred towards Roman Republican currency and Roman Imperial currency. This article would continue to be the 'main article' and should describe the major issues. Later developments during the Republic should be described in 'Roman Republican currency'. Developments and major issues under the empire should be explained in 'Roman Imperial currency'. Flamarande (talk) 15:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

On Snakes and Pandas

I have fixed several attempts at vandalism starting from this, which for some weird reason replaced the words gold and silver with panda and snake. Whatever.

Several further vandal edits followed, along with fake or incomplete attempts at fixing the problem, so it wasn't possible to simply undo the issue. If this persists, the page may need to be locked to prevent anonymous edits. For now, please watch out. Pestergaines (talk) 13:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Fractions

The Fraction template may be elegant, but many of the fractions came out too small to read. For example, in 4⁄5 the denominator is "5", but it looks like a "6" on my screen at any reasonable font view size. So I changed all the fractions to plain text (4/5).

Where there was an integer before the fraction (12 1⁄2) I inserted two no-break spaces after the integer (12  1/2). I've often seen a hyphen used in such cases in American usage (12-1/2 or 12 - 1/2), but I don't know how widespread that usage is and thought it could be too easily mistaken for a minus sign.

-- Thnidu (talk) 00:23, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Link not working

The link "Buying Power of Roman Coins" on the main page does not work. It would be very useful if there were some idea of what items could be bought with particular coins, such as in the time of Augustus (to correlate to the tables given).DeAragon 20:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dearagon (talk • contribs)

Fixed the broken link. Augoust (talk) 23:53, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Emperor Augustus coin found

http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_eng.aspx?sec_id=25&subj_id=240

New high-quality images

Hi folks, I'm pleased to say that the curators at the Yorkshire Museum have continued to be keen on Wikipedia well after my residency finished! They've just uploaded some high-resolution images of Roman coins: focusing on emperors that currently have no images on their biography articles. Hopefully they'll be useful here too! You can find them here: Numismatic collections of York Museums Trust. The categories could use a little sorting but are pretty usable as is. Cheers PatHadley (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Unclear/False statement regarding Quietus

This article states "Quietus, for example, ruled only part of the Roman Empire from 260 to 261 AD, and yet he issued two coins bearing his image." This is not true, as there are many coins of Quietus in existence, certainly more than two. I am not sure what the original editor had in mind, but this should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1ThatGuyJoe1 (talk • contribs) 20:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Bad footnotes link

Footnote 11 (ancientcoinz.biz) is now a spam website, please verify and remove the reference if deem necessary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.52.19.197 (talk) 20:51, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

How were the coins issued?

Should be explained in the article. Fkbreitl (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

You're right. There's quite a lot of discussion on this, because no one knows for certain. Duncan-Jones, Howgego and others generally argue that payments to soldiers and donations to the people of Rome were the main means. Others see some targeted supply of (eg) small change to places where it was lacking. I'll dig up refs one day. And in some places and times, people made their own. Furius (talk) 12:34, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Might this be better…

‘From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC’

… as ‘From its introduction during the Republic, in the third century BC…’ 2001:8003:3020:1C00:44F1:85C9:436C:4A2E (talk) 07:42, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

ERROR in the diecletian values table

if 25 argentei are one aureus, and one argenteus itself is worth 100 denarii (all the other values until argenteus add up perfectly) -- then 25*100 denarii = 2500 denarii, but the table lists 1000, aka 1 aureus == only 10 argentei, and all the other coin values in this row also speak of a factor of 10.

so, what is right now, the 1:25 rate, then all cells regarding the aureus are wrong, or the 1:10 rate and just the one cell has to be amended? 2A02:810D:8AC0:4C08:6437:366C:98BE:525F (talk) 08:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC)