Andrew Walsh

Session 10

November 2012

LATE EMPIREROMAN COINS

Rough Dates for the Roman EmpireEarly Empire: 1st-3rd centuries ADLate Empire: 3rd-5th centuries AD

3rd century AD – ¨Crisis of the Third Century¨ Economic problems Invasions Civil war Plague

All leading to major instability, politically, economically, and financially. All the wealthy people began moving out of the cities.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Diocletion (285AD-305AD) Split the Roman Empire in two sections – East and West – to aid the crisis of

the 3rd century. He revised the currencies based on old denominations of the denarii to help

unify the country. Aureus Argenteus Follis

Constantine the Great (306AD-337AD)

Officially legalized Christianity

IMPORTANT EMPERORS

IDENTIFYING A COIN

Image courtesy of http://tjbuggey.ancients.info/coinread.html

MINTING OF COINS

They first used two-sided molds to mint coins.

Open-air styles eventually were used, with a blank disc of whichever material desired was inserted into the correct area.

Hoards of Roman coins have been found all over the areas of their vast empire, in addition to dyes in great condition that illustrate the issues of the copying of coins during their circulation.

Minting areas were located across their entire empire

1st century BC: circular design became standard 3rd century AD: detailed stylization of the emperor portraits 4th century AD: idealized Greek form, often indestinguishable

coins discovered in th is session by Chris t ina and Joe

Common obverse: current or past emperors, usually celebrating a victory or similar accomplishment

Common reverse: deities, mythical scenes, ships

COINAGE

Coinage became extremely inconsistent when inflation hit the Roman Empire hard during the 3rd century.

There was a shortage of money from many reasons, including paying military costs.

Citizens all over the empire started to hoard coinage, and cut some corners by stretching their financial wealth.

This was done by clipping coins, which is several different variations of obtaining precious materials from the coins to either smelt.

DEBASING & ¨CLIPPING¨ CURRENCY

¨Clipping¨ the coin meant literally cutting the coin in pieces to either extract materials, or to pass the coin of as equal tender.

Often coins were shaved down along the outer rim.

Lisa found this cl ipped coin!

With the constant financial issues surrounding the wars and invasions occurring across the empire, coins from previous years were reused, restruck, and reissued.

Constantine the Great attempted to alleviate the problems in 310AD by lowering the gold content of the solidus, which lasted until the 11th century.

Coin depicting Constantine II

that Jeff found!

Diocletian in 301AD announced the ¨Price Edict¨ (Edictum de Pretis) which limited the price on goods. Considered a good idea at the time, it unfortunately didn not work because many of the goods left the city instead of adjusting their prices.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Fel(ix) Temp(orum) Reparation translates to ¨Happy Restoration of the Times¨ and was used as a slogan for the commemoration of the founding of Rome. This phrase appears on many coins of the Late Empire period in Roman history, especially of the 4th century.

FEL TEMP REPARATION

When Christianity was legalized in the 4th century, Pagan gods were replaced on the reverse by older, more traditional symbols like victory

The issues with debasing of coins became a major problem by the 4th century. Silver was not used in minting anymore, and was replaced by much less valuable material.

THE TIMES ARE CHANGING

Many emperors of the Late Empire period attempted to issue new currency at various eights, combinations, denominations, etc. But all to no avail. Diocletian is one of the few who was semi-successful on several levels.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY