Gilles Bransbourg

Roman currency and imperialism 'For let none of them have currency or weights or measures of their own; instead let them use ours.' (Dio 52.30.9). This is how in the 3rd century AD Cassius Dio described Maecenas supposedly advising Augustus to impose the Roman monetary system all over the Empire. However, The Roman conquest of the East did not lead to classic colonial alignment with the metropolis – Rome. The Greek-speaking East developed a peculiar synthesis, where local practice influenced and was influenced at the same time by the conqueror while retaining a high degree of diversity. Roman colonialism, if such concept is adapted to the complexity of the way Roman dominions grew, allowed for a rather large degree of political autonomy at a local level, very well reflected in the monetary sphere.

Through a comparative and parallel use of papyrological and numismatic materials, the paper analyses the processes and the monetary reforms at play behind the Roman "hyper-inflation" of the mid-4th century CE, a century during which prices rose by a factor of 50,000. The Fel Temp Reparatio coinages that marked the 1100th birthday of the Urbs in 348 brought inflation to its climax, with prices jumping about twenty-fold a in matter of two or three years in 351-354. A parallel increased supply of silver coinage was allowed by the removal of silver from the existing billon coinage. These mutations led ultimately to the bimetallic gold:bronze bullion-based price system that defines the later Byzantine period.

This chapter presents a new estimate of the value of coinage in circulation in the mid-second century CE Roman empire. More than 25 years ago, Richard Duncan-Jones revolutionized ancient economic history by offering a first projection through numismatic and statistical methods. At more than 20 bn sesterces, his estimate implied an anomalously high monetization ratio given past and current estimates of Roman GDP, an issue that economic historians have had to deal with ever since. In the first half, a review of the numismatic evidence points to a much smaller role for gold than posited by Duncan-Jones. The second half presents a new model of the money supply. It uses Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the value of centrally-minted precious metal coins produced annually under Hadrian, and then the total coinage in circulation ca 160 CE. Allowance for various uncertainties and other, minor components of the coinage suggests a money supply of around 16 bn sesterces, with less gold and more silver than expected. However, this is not quite low enough to explain away the monetization ratio, implying a higher GDP and more trade-oriented economy than currently thought. Two appendices contain lengthy but essential technical discussions of the assumptions in the estimate.

he Roman world of the third and fourth centuries experienced inflation on a hitherto unknown scale. During the
early 270s, prices in Egypt increased about 20-fold. The
denarius, once a valuable silver coin, turned into a unit of
account of which tens and soon hundreds were needed to
express current prices. These orders of magnitude were,
however, dwarfed during the fourth-century process of
monetary debasement. Prior to Diocletian’s Currency Edict
of 301, a Roman pound of gold carried an official price of
60,000 denarii. By the end of the same century, it was worth 3
3 billion denarii. Most commodities followed a comparable path. This was equivalent to a 12.5% annual inflation rate over 90 years, considering that prices stabilised in the 390s. At the same time, the Roman coinage system went through considerable changes...

After the Tetrarchic monetary reforms in 301, the combination of the depletion of silver through the coining of billon, together with a lack of public trust and a sustained period of civil wars between imperial pretenders in need of cash resources, led to the disappearance of pure silver coinage. A second attempt to introduce a gold / silver coinage system, complemented by pure copper, occurred from the mid-4th century. By the end of the century, that had failed as well. Rather than a sheer lack of metal, it seems more likely that the progressive phasing-out of silver coinage during that period resulted from conscious monetary policy choices. The new sources of gold in the second half of the 4th century provided the Empire with much higher metallic wealth. Gold was more suited to its needs, as the Empire had to handle higher military and tributary pressure from outside. This supported the implementation of a coinage system based on a single metal – gold –, and thus, as an additional advantage, precluding potential fluctuations of value ratios between silver and gold.

Le monnayage de bronze dit “des préfets de la flotte” tient une part importante dans l’oeuvre de Michel Amandry, qui
a pris la suite de Max von Bahrfeldt sur ce sujet. En effet, ce ne sont pas moins de cinq catalogues raisonnés, avec leurs
révisions, qui ont été publiés par Michel entre 1986 et 2008. À ces articles, nous pouvons joindre plusieurs travaux de
réflexion ainsi que bien évidemment les sections correspondantes du Roman Provincial Coinage, dont Michel est l’un
des éminents contributeurs.
La reprise des frappes de bronze par des autorités romaines, interrompues depuis Sylla, n’avait certes pas attendu
Marc-Antoine : plusieurs séries sont émises sous l’autorité de Jules César et des fils de Pompée, Octave lui-même
produisant un monnayage abondant probablement de dupondii et d’asses à partir de 401. Mais les séries orientales de
Marc-Antoine, produites vraisemblablement entre 38 et 37 principalement en Grèce, échappent à l’ordinaire.
Outre la présence auprès
de Marc Antoine d’Octavie, deuxième femme romaine après Fulvia à être montrée de son vivant sur un monnayage
romain, le très large éventail des dénominations allant du sesterce au quadrans, l’introduction des unités monétaires
divisionnaires romaines en Orient, la résurrection du tressis et du dupondius, la symbolique utilisée pour rendre le
nouveau système intelligible, le bilinguisme et l’émission de très gros bronzes pour les sesterces, tous ces éléments
représentent autant d’innovations monétaires majeures.

Il n’est pas douteux que la simultanéité dans le temps de la brève apparition de la marque XVI sur des séries de denarii, de l’allègement des séries de bronze et du remplacement de l’as par le sestertius en tant qu’unité de compte implique une tentative de réforme monétaire autour de 141–140 av. J.-C. Il nous reste à analyser
les modalités et le pourquoi de cette réforme monétaire de longue durée, puisqu'à l'époque impériale il est clair que le denarius, qui avait été créé en tant qu'unité valant 10 asses de bronze, vaut désormais 16 asses de standard pondéral réduit.

Coins themselves appear in Lydia at the end of the VIIth century BCE. But the monetary use of metal is much older. Mesopotamian tablets, the weight units’ origins of the monetary vocabulary, the pictorial representations or archeological discoveries of fragments of diverse metals demonstrate the traditional use of gold, silver, copper, tin, bronze or iron in the exchanges of the Near East and the Mediterranean regions of the Bronze Age. The relative abundance of precious metals and the degree of wealth reached by various cultures then lead to the implementation of profoundly different monetary traditions. If Greece, Asia Minor and the economic space under Greek influence evolve towards coinages dominated by silver standards, using gold at the high end of the monetary scale, if gold and silver circulate in relative abundance in the Persian world, Gaul and Iberia even before coinage spreads, vast areas remain dedicated to uncoined bronze – like much of Italy except the Hellenized south. When Rome adopts finally silver coinage, bronze remains at the heart of its monetary thinking.
The Greek world finally shifts toward bronze coinage from the IVth BCE onward. But base metal is confined to the low end of its denominational range, very light coins implying a high fiduciary degree. While coinage is considered as a good in itself based on its metal value for Rome, it is considered as proceeding from the law in Greece, hence the ideal construction synthesized by Platon with the mintage of precious metal for the outside world and of a fiduciary currency for internal needs.
These two concepts of currency had to mutually influence each other. If Augustus became the head of a politically unified space covering the whole Greco-Roman world, the honor of having implemented a system deriving from both traditions belongs to the officials in charge of Marc Antony’s monetary policy. During this fascinating period bronze rises higher through the scale of monetary values, increases its fiduciary component and replaces silver as far as the archetypal Roman unit of account, the sestertius, is concerned. If Egypt influenced Marc Antony’s monneyers Marc-Antoine, the introduction of brass under Caesar and then Augustus proceeds from Asia Minor. Seemingly originating with some of Mithidates VI’s issues, this material occupies a status by many respects intermediate between precious and basic metal. Beside copper that dominates the lower divisional series, brass serves as basis to the sesterii and dupondii minted under Augustus shortly after Actium in Asia Minor. This experiment is then transposed in Rome, where this mintage will contribute to introduce a higher fiduciary component within the Roman monetary practice. In a sense, this reform lies at the core of a monetary thinking where nominalism competes against metallism as the legitimate source of value. This tension was promised to a bright future.

Modern states mostly fund themselves through taxation. Although other resources, like royal or temple lands, plunder, tributary extraction from subject communities and hybrid private–public contributions from oligarchies, played a larger role with ancient states, regular direct or indirect taxation represented a significant source of funding.1 The Roman Empire––notably from the time of Diocletian’s reforms at the turn of the fourth century CE––brought tax mechanisms to a degree of sophistication unknown on such a grand scale. Income tax, inheritance tax, sales tax, customs dues, regular wealth assessments, and their corollary (litigation, corruption, deficits, coinage manipulations, and official moral justifications of all sorts)––most of the components displayed by modern tax regimes were alive and well.
We shall retrace from ancient sources the path that led a predatory entity––the Roman Republic––into becoming a complex, fully–fledged fiscal regime on an imperial scale. We shall compare imperial discourse with its actual practice. Finally, after a journey across eight centuries of Roman fiscal thinking, we shall settle in sixth–century Roman Egypt in order to assess how taxation was practically implemented–– at least, at that time in that region of the Empire.
Key quotes from ancient sources form the backbone of this work until its last section. The main reason behind that choice lies in the fact that we aim at a comparison between the principles and the realities of Roman tax doctrine. As later Roman Egypt is by far the best documented case, none of what preceded it had the prerequisite that could have led to solid numerical estimates of tax–extraction rates. Moreover, extensive qualitative studies of the Roman tax system are available and there was no need to reinvent the wheel.2 We shall follow the emergence and progressive assertion of Roman fiscal doctrine until it reaches its most fully achieved state of development during the later imperial period. These ancient testimonies will make evident the gradual shift that transformed a predatory process into the procedures of a state sharing common values and interests with all its free inhabitants.
Our final conclusions will challenge some assumptions often linked with Late Antiquity: an overall weakening of the state, an increasingly parasitic landed aristocracy, and a shrinking class of small landowners.

This chapter is a contribution to LIBERA CURIOSITAS MÉLANGES D'HISTOIRE ROMAINE ET D'ANTIQUITÉ TARDIVE OFFERTS À JEAN-MICHEL CARRIÉ.  It addresses the topic of the decline and fall of the western half of the Empire through close examination and attempt at quantifying the progressive dislocation of its fiscal structure. Its situation is assessed through a comparative analysis of the relative efficiency of the the eastern Roman Empire tax mechanisms.

Une lecture numérique de certains dossiers de financement issus des archives de la famille financière des Sulpicii de Pouzzoles au Ier siècle p.C. nous permet de suggérer que le niveau de rémunération et de garanties exigé par les prêteurs d'argent pouvait s'adapter à l'évolution du risque représenté par un emprunteur. Ceci impliquerait l'existence de certains des mécanismes nécessaires au fonctionnement d'un marché du crédit au sein de cette région économiquement névralgique du monde romain.

A numerical reading of the financing files from the archives of the Sulpicii family of Pozzuoli from the 1st century AD allows us to suggest that the interest rate and the guarantee levels requested by money lenders could be adapted according to the risk of the borrower. This would imply that some of the necessary mechanisms for a fully-fledged credit market existed in this economically strategic region of the Roman Empire.

The collapse of the Roman heavy bronze coinage weight standards during the 3rd century BC is a well-known fact. Between the series following the Roman libra of 288 scruples’ standard (c. 323 g), assigned by M. Crawford to the years 280-270 BC, and some of the light series of the years 210-200 BC, the weight loss is over 90%. The Roman state initially experienced an obvious monetary panic as it lacked the means to fund its war effort after Trasimene and Cannae. In a matter of few years, its subsequent decisions affecting its coinage structure testify to a heightened awareness of what was at stake as far as the financial aspect of the war was concerned. Through the debasement of the bronze coinage, the recourse to a short-lived gold coinage and the establishment of a stable silver coinage, the Republic managed to raise additional resources and reduce its liabilities while improving its financial capacities. In doing so, it designed a monetary policy aimed at supporting a successful war economy.

The satisficing Roman Imperial fiscal regime of its first two centuries  could operate as long as the potential resources easily at its disposal significantly exceeded its needs. As the second century CE unfolded, several mechanisms at the core of the Imperial extraction structure became more and more problematic with, first and foremost, its essentially tributary nature. Diocletian’s conception of standardized taxable units of accounts enabling the state universally to assess the contributory potential of the land and of its workforce, human or animal, was unquestionably revolutionary. Even after the eventual fall of the Roman Empire in the West, it will deeply influence the way later European modern states will define their taxation powers once Europe started to emerge from its feudal fragmentation and rediscovered its Roman past.

Préface
Au moment de rédiger ces lignes, je m’aperçois que quatre années presque jour pour jour se sont
écoulées depuis la soutenance de « Fiscalité et enjeux de pouvoir dans le monde romain », le 15
novembre 2010. Roger Bagnall, membre du jury et éminent savant auquel je dois tant, m’avait
encouragé à publier ce travail au plus vite. Avec la réserve amicale qui lui est propre, mon maître
Jean-Michel Carrié me demandait régulièrement ce qu’il en était, sans oublier Monsieur Jean
Andreau tout à ses Affaires, autre grand savant au contact si précieux. Que je n’aie pas été en
mesure de le faire ne surprendra aucun ancien doctorant : dès la thèse achevée, la pression est très
forte en vue de publier articles et résultats de recherches, d’enseigner ou de participer à colloques
et conférences, eux-mêmes demandeurs d’actes écrits. Cela est peut-être encore plus vrai dans le
monde anglo-saxon, où l’indice individuel de respectabilité académique se mesure souvent au
nombre des travaux publiés. Dans mon cas, ces obstacles ont été accrus par un facteur
spécifique : ma thèse traitait largement de l’impact du circuit monétaire au sein de l’équilibre
économique de Rome, mais je ne m’étais pas encore physiquement confronté au matériel, à
savoir aux monnaies elles-mêmes. Mon rôle à l’American Numismatic Society depuis 2011, en
parallèle d’une affiliation à l’Institute for the Study of the Ancient World depuis 2009, allait
nécessairement placer mes travaux dans une perspective renouvelée.
Il était donc tentant de remettre toujours à plus tard une révision du travail initial. Mais à ce jeu
rien ne sort jamais. A chaque nouvelle publication portant sur un sujet plus ou moins connexe,
paragraphes et chapitres peuvent être indéfiniment amendés afin de refléter le nouvel état
provisoire de la recherche.
Aujourd’hui, je rédigerais ainsi certains passages de cette thèse manière parfois différente, alors
que des erreurs ou inexactitudes me sont apparues, pendant que les méthodes suivies devraient
parfois être améliorées ou plutôt affinées. La section B, « La faim de monnaie », demanderait
ainsi à s’appuyer davantage sur l’évolution et la diversité du véhicule monétaire lui-même. Dans
la section C, « La tentation de l’unité », notamment au sein de son deuxième chapitre,
« Fiscalité : conflits et répartition », certaines interprétations récentes et convaincantes du
matériel papyrologique m’avaient partiellement échappé et mériteraient une exploitation plus
complète.
Néanmoins, je ne remets pas en cause la logique d’ensemble, la finalité et l’essentiel des résultats
et pistes de recherches suggérés par l’édifice. J’espère ainsi que la communauté scientifique
trouvera avantage à ce que ce travail devienne disponible dès maintenant, sans attendre des
révisions qui, pour être limitées, pourraient se faire attendre encore longtemps. Certains collègues
m’ont d’ailleurs poussé dans cette voie en demandant que le texte leur soit envoyé à titre privé
puis en en faisant usage dans le cadre de leurs propres recherches. Je les en remercie.
L’Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses m’offre l’opportunité de franchir le pas, à la
condition de maintenir le texte sous sa version originelle. Je lui en suis profondément
reconnaissant.
New York, le 18 novembre 2014.

P.Col. 7.141 col. iv testifies to a rare tax-related payment of bronze, as already highlighted by Roger Bagnall in the seventh volume of Columbia papyri. This proves an explicit levy of bronze as raw metal was taking place. Bronze could be levied, these levies could be translated into a cash payment, and official prices undervalued bronze.

Through a comparative and parallel use of papyrological and numismatic materials, the paper analyses the processes and the monetary reforms at play behind the Roman "hyper-inflation" of the mid-4th century CE, a century during which prices rose by a factor of 50,000. The Fel Temp Reparatio coinages that marked the 1100th birthday of the Urbs in 348 brought inflation to its climax, with prices jumping about twenty-fold a in matter of two or three years in 351-354. A parallel increased supply of silver coinage was allowed by the removal of silver from the existing billon coinage. These mutations led ultimately to the bimetallic gold:bronze bullion-based price system that defines the later Byzantine period.

The modern economist Peter Temin has recently used econometrics to argue that the Roman grain market was an integrated and efficient market. This paper gathers additional data and applies further methods of modern economic analysis to reach a different conclusion. It shows that the overall Roman economy was not fully integrated, although the Mediterranean Sea did create some meaningful integration along a few privileged trade routes. Still, it is not possible to identify pure market forces that existed in isolation, since the political structures that maintained the Empire strongly influenced the movement of money and trade goods.

This paper argues that the contrasted degrees of fiduciarity and metallism of the base coinage between the Greek states and Rome were essentially the result of practical considerations linked to its vulnerability to counterfeiting, rather than the result of different conceptions of the idea of money. Similarly, the gradual decline of the weight of Roman bronze coinage during the later Republic, traditionally explained as the consequence of a growing acceptance of fiduciary money, was essentially the mechanical product of a fall in the market value of silver as a commodity. The consequence of this reading ultimately leads to a reassessment of some the financial and political developments of the later Republic.

In the first part of Fides et Pecunia Numerata , I suggested that the full scale exploitation of the Spanish mines by Rome caused a fall in the relative value of silver as a commodity during the 2nd century BC. This explained for the most part the decrease in weight standards of the Roman bronze coinage between the end of the Second Punic War and the Social War, finally endorsed through the monetary reform of Octavian. Broad though the scope of that paper was, some major issues remained unresolved. One of these is the key question of the meaning of the X, XVI and 𐆖 marks of values that alternate for a few decades after c. 141 BC onward on Republican denarii.
We will argue here that the only possible explanation fully compatible with the observed data implies some instability with respect to the conversion rate between bronze and silver coinages. This will lead to the emergence of a suggested rationale behind the monetary history of the period that separates the Gracchan episode from the Sullan restoration. Silver and bronze coinages mark a dividing line within the Roman society, separating the silver-rich upper strata from the lower classes whose wealth and income was defined by bronze. The monetary relationship between both coinages became a key battlefield within the power struggle between the two main factions fighting for the control of the Republic.

Résumé - Du 30 mars au 29 septembre 2012, l’exposition ‘Signs of Inflation’ s’est tenue à la Federal Reserve Bank de New York. Présentée par l’American Numismatic Society, elle a rassemblé près de 200 objets monétaires ‘inflationnistes’ couvrant près de trois mille ans d’histoire, pour la plupart issus de  la tradition monétaire méditerranéenne et occidentale. Plusieurs dizaines de milliers de visiteurs ont pu découvrir les petites fractions de bronze aux côtés des monnaies d’or de l’Empire romain tardif, les assignats de la Révolution française ou les billets aux quatorze zéros du Zimbabwe de 2008. Cet article envisage dans le cadre de la durée longue l’interaction entre l’inflation, les objets numismatiques et la situation historique auxquels ils participent. Chronologiquement, l‘inflation est tout d’abord le produit du rapport entre l’offre et la demande des matériaux monétaires eux-mêmes. Elle ne devient un phénomène pleinement endogène aux sociétés humaines qu’à partir du moment où l’autorité politique parvient à imposer à l’objet monétaire une valeur d’usage distincte de la valeur intrinsèque du matériau dont il est constitué. L’inflation, compagne habituelle des guerres et des révolutions, devient le mode ultime de résolution des conflits liés à la répartition des richesses au sein d’une société. Les formes successives prises par l’objet monétaire contribuent alors à définir les limites de l’inflation, voire son absence de limites.

Summary - From March 30 to September 29, 2012, 'Signs of Inflation', an exhibition of the American Numismatic Society, was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It gathered nearly 200 'inflationary' monetary objects stretching across almost three thousands years of history, most of them belonging to the Mediterranean and Western monetary tradition. Tens of thousands of visitors came to admire the late Roman Empire’s small fractions of bronze as well as its gold coins, the assignats of the French Revolution or the fourteen zero banknote of 2008 Zimbabwe. This article uses a long-term perspective to approach the interaction between inflation, the numismatic objects and the historical situation that shaped them. Chronologically, inflation is a produce of the relationship between supply and demand for the  monetary materials themselves. It only becomes a phenomenon fully endogenous to human societies when the political authority manages to allocate to monetary objects an exchange value distinct from the intrinsic value of the material from which it is made. Inflation, alongside wars and revolutions, becomes the ultimate mode of conflict resolution in the distribution of wealth within a society. The successive forms taken by monetary objects then help to shape the limits of inflation, or alternatively its lack of boundaries.

Sixth century's Dioscorus and the Apion dossiers represent a unique opportunity to bring quantitative methods into the study of ancient economies. With a combined total of more than a thousand chronologically overlapping documents from two different Egyptian nomes, many of these account logs, the material from these two dossiers sheds light on the micro-economic situation of large and small estates in late antique Egypt. This paper uses many of these accounts—including some still unpublished—in order to reach estimates of the available agricultural surplus, its distribution between tenants, owners and state, the level of economic rationality undergirding economic choices by large and small owners, and the evolution of the imperial taxation policy at a period when Justinian was working to win back the lost western provinces for the Roman realm. The traditional assumption that the grands domaines grew at the expense of the smaller landowners in this period is drawn into question, and the argument is made that large and small properties display complementary rather than antagonistic economic relationships. Close examination of the documents also provides an image of the ancient economy that contradicts familiar assumptions of stability: taxation evolved in response to political and military necessities, and economic actors had to adapt in order to thrive or at least survive in times of fiscal crisis. The article also provides a sense of provincial unity and of a surprisingly equitable and efficient implementation of tax processing in Egypt.

Du 30 mars au 29 septembre 2012, l’exposition ‘ Signs of Inflation’ s’est tenue a la Federal Reserve Bank de New York. Presentee par l’American Numismatic Society, elle a rassemble pres de 200 objets monetaires ‘ inflationnistes’ couvrant pres de trois mille ans d’histoire, pour la plupart issus de la tradition monetaire mediterraneenne et occidentale. Plusieurs dizaines de milliers de visiteurs ont pu decouvrir les petites fractions de bronze aux cotes des monnaies d’or de l’Empire romain tardif, les assignats de la Revolution francaise ou les billets aux quatorze zeros du Zimbabwe de 2008. Cet article envisage dans le cadre de la duree longue l’interaction entre l’inflation, les objets numismatiques et la situation historique auxquels ils participent. Chronologiquement, l’inflation est tout d’abord le produit du rapport entre l’offre et la demande des materiaux monetaires eux-memes. Elle ne devient un phenomene pleinement endogene aux societes humaines qu’a partir du moment ou l’autorite politique parvient a imposer a l’objet monetaire une valeur d’usage distincte de la valeur intrinseque du materiau dont il est constitue. L’inflation, compagne habituelle des guerres et des revolutions, devient le mode ultime de resolution des conflits lies a la repartition des richesses au sein d’une societe. Les formes successives prises par l’objet monetaire contribuent alors a definir les limites de l’inflation, voire son absence de limites.

Dans une perspective de longue duree braudelienne qui envisage l'histoire economique de l'Antiquite comme une realite dynamique au meme titre que celle du monde moderne et dans une complete indifference par rapport au conflit modernisme-primitivisme, la these tente de degager l'emergence progressive d'une philosophie et d'une economie politique du monde romain. Une economie de contribution a remplace un systeme predateur a un niveau d'echelle spatiale, de diversification et de codification jamais atteint precedemment et qui ne se retrouvera plus en Occident avant les Temps Modernes. Le partage de la rente fiscale representait l'enjeu principal des conflits politiques agitant les differents groupes de pouvoir de la Rome imperiale. Il faut donc analyser les interactions entre armees, cites pouvoir central, grands proprietaires et, pour finir, eglises. Dans la mesure ou ce partage a ete de plus en plus mediatise par la monnaie, histoire monetaire et choix fiscaux sont intimement lies. Ce travail aboutit a des resultats numeriques et dynamiques portant sur l'evolution de la masse monetaire, les taux de prelevement fiscal et le budget imperial. La comparaison entre ces deux derniers elements impliquerait une population de l'Empire vivant a la limite du seuil de survie. Or cela est tout a fait contraire a notre estimation du niveau de prosperite generale. En realite, les modes de retention de la ressource fiscale dans les provinces ne sont jamais evoquees. Les sources anciennes confondent prelevements et depenses publiques de l'Etat central. Les enjeux de l'economie politique se concentrent alors sur le partage de cette "matiere noire" entre les acteurs du pouvoir

This paper’s subtitle raises a certain number of issues, starting with
the concept of middle class in Antiquity. Then, the very idea that coinage
and socio-economic structures are linked suggests that political
authorities in the ancient world did care about the functions fulfilled by coinage, beyond satisfying their budgetary needs. Finally, the reference to gold and silver standards implies that these same authorities had developed a practical understanding of some of the issues generated by the use of more than one monetary metal.
We will first establish the relevance of the idea of a middle class in the ancient world, and assess the economic impact of the 5th-century crisis.
Moving to the question of silver coinage during that period, the examination
of minting activity and contemporary hoards will compare the relative
supply of coined and un-coined silver and gold.
Once the parallel declines of silver and middle class have been established
for the most part, the key question will be whether these two observations are linked: correlation does not equate causality. e Roman Empire had used a gold-silver bimetallic system supplemented by base metals during the period that stretches from Julius Caesar until the monetary dislocation of the mid-3rd century. However, many ancient and medieval states used a single precious metal for their higher value coins. Greek cities minted in silver, until the Macedonian conquest and the expansion toward the Persian Empire made gold more available. The Roman Republic used gold in emergency cases only, as Athens had done. Reciprocally, silver coinage remains relatively rare in medieval Byzantium, while being the dominant monetary medium in neighboring Sasanian Persia or in northwestern Europe after the mid-7th century.
Several hypotheses will need to be tested, starting with the relative availability of gold and silver in the Mediterranean area during the late Roman period. Then, the relationships between societal structures and monetary choices will be discussed. Finally, the reciprocal advantages procured by a mono-metallic vs. a bimetallic coinage system will be considered, while accounting for the interactions between neighboring states.
In the end, the most likely scenario behind the relative abandonment of
coined silver in the 5th century, which for the most part will characterize Byzantium early monetary history, involves diverse factors. ey include structural (access to mines and bullion), societal (need for middle-value denominations), political (military and diplomatic needs), and monetary (metallic standards) factors.

he Roman world of the third and fourth centuries experienced inflation on a hitherto unknown scale. During the early 270s, prices in Egypt increased about 20-fold. The denarius, once a valuable silver coin, turned into a unit of account of which tens and soon hundreds were needed to express current prices. These orders of magnitude were, however, dwarfed during the fourth-century process of monetary debasement. Prior to Diocletian’s Currency Edict of 301, a Roman pound of gold carried an official price of 60,000 denarii. By the end of the same century, it was worth 3 3 billion denarii. Most commodities followed a comparable path. This was equivalent to a 12.5% annual inflation rate over 90 years, considering that prices stabilised in the 390s. At the same time, the Roman coinage system went through considerable changes...

The article, authored by Peter van Alfen, Gilles Bransbourg, Ethan Gruber, and Andrew Reinhard, details all of the recent NEH-funded work being done at the ANS with a nod to the Society's past regarding Open Access initiatives and data-sharing.

A la fin de la Republique, Rome devient la plus grande megapole de la Mediterranee antique. Contrairement a Alexandrie, elle ne s’appuie pas sur un hinterland favorable. Assurer son ravitaillement devient alors le principal defi logistique que doit relever le pouvoir romain. La prise de controle par Rome de l’ensemble des zones de production cerealiere de la Mediterranee lui permet en theorie de disposer de marges de manœuvre, une fois le developpement d’une flotte et de facilites portuaires adaptees realise au 1er siecle de notre ere. Que devient alors ce ble excedentaire ? Les sources sur ce sujet demeurent tres parcellaires, et c’est a travers le recoupement d’indices separes chronologiquement et geographiquement que les effets de levier politiques et financiers dont profitent les autorites apparaissent petit a petit. Les pratiques varient dans le temps et l’espace, le public cotoyant le prive, mais le pragmatisme du pouvoir romain ne se dement jamais.

The question of restoring the gold standard alongside convertibility of paper money—achieved in the US as early as 1919, followed by Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, and the Philippines, and soon El Salvador and Costa Rica—became central to immediate post-war economic thinking, as expressed by the international conventions held in Brussels and Genoa in 1920 and 1922. Germany returned to the gold standard in 1924 with an overvalued Mark; Britain restored its pre-war convertibility rate in 1925 through a gold bullion standard (only large sums of paper money were redeemable in gold ingots), while France did so in 1926 with an undervalued Franc.
Facing economic depression, consumer price increases, rising inequality, social and political tensions, debt crises, and some degree of currency instability, Latin American countries had to adjust to this new environment.

The paper looks at gold and silver coins produced since the end of the Bretton Woods Gold Exchange Standard and studies their efficiency as store of value within an otherwise fiat currency system. The question of market vs. commodity value is discussed, with a particular focus on face value coins, i.e., precious metal coins sold by the mints at their notional value, particularly in Canada and France.

Money is a very pervasive component of our lives and something most of us would struggle to define – or, better said, would come-up with a range of acceptable definitions. Currencies do not necessarily have to be produced by states and many different private entities have minted coins (and later banknotes) throughout history. Bitcoin was launched in January, 2009, by a group whose pseudonym is Satoshi Nakamoto. They represent a return to the core of what commodity-currencies used to be while challenging the established practice of state-guaranteed currencies. Burgeoning levels of debts have then appeared as a new threat not so much to monetary credibility but rather to social cohesion. The concept of monetary growth altogether independent of states and borrowers offered by the Bitcoin project remains highly attractive and could represent a solution to the current inequality growth. But the Bitcoin project, by its quantitative limitations, does not offer the most promising prospects for this. Some of its underlying ideas could nevertheless precipitate a monetary revolution the day the current era of debt-driven growth comes to an end.

William Goetzmann, professeur de finance et des études de management
à la Yale School of Management et directeur de l’International Center for
Finance, se penche depuis des années sur les aspects historiques des développements ayant amené aux concepts actuels de valeur et de marchés. "Money Changes Everything" vise à présenter une synthèse des différentes étapes ayant mené l’humanité à développer ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui les marchés financiers.

Review: Roman Provincial Coinage. Volume III. Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian (AD 96–138). Michel Amandry and Andrew Burnett, in collaboration with Jérôme Mairat and with contributions by W. Metcalf, L. Bricault and M. Blet-Lemarquant.  British Museum and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, London, Paris, 2015. Part I: Catalogue. Part II: General Introduction, Indexes, and Plates.

Overall, beyond minor concerns, RPC III holds its promises as a masterpiece that no one with an interest in the period will be able to dispense with. Loaded with invaluable information and genuine discoveries that will change some previously accepted facts, combining ancient sources’ erudite knowledge with the use of the most recent relevant works, these volumes manage to combine scientific value with an undeniable sense of enjoyment as texts, tables, charts, pictures and the general layout all contribute to the reader’s own pleasure. Furthermore, what makes these volumes even more remarkable lies with their collaborative aspect. Dual publication of a printed and of an online version secures RPC III’s potential for further growth, as new coin-types will find their way on the website within the structure laid out by the book. One can only thank the authors for the years of work they have invested and salute their production with utmost respect and admiration.

Dans un régime de change flexible, aucun engagement n’est pris au sujet du taux de change, qui flotte librement en fonction de l’offre et de la demande sur le marché des changes. (…) Le flottement s’applique donc, en principe, à un marché des changes libéralisé, même si l’on peut imaginer un système de flottement impur encadré par un contrôle des changes.

Il s’agit bien entendu d’une provocation : qui pourrait imaginer que les Anciens aient laissé fluctuer la valeur de leurs monnaies entre elles, les trapezitai et argentarii, à l’image des changeurs médiévaux, déterminant au cas par cas la valeur de conversion de chaque pièce de monnaie? Qu’un agio ait été prélevé lors des opérations de conversion est attesté. Que certaines monnaies aient fait l’objet de décotes ou surcotes à l’extérieur de leur zone de circulation est raisonnablement admis. Que des cours de change aient pu flotter est rarement évoqué. Quant au fait qu’à l’intérieur d’un même système monétaire, la valeur relative des différentes dénominations ait pu fluctuer durant certaines périodes, cela relève du plus pur fantasme modernisant.

L’histoire du monnayage de la République entre la seconde guerre punique et la réforme d’Octave pose néanmoins différents problèmes que l’état actuel de la recherche peine à interpréter de manière satisfaisante. Pourquoi les marques de valeur ‘X’ sont-elles brièvement remplacées par la marque XVI sur les deniers un peu après le milieu du 2e siècle, pour revenir, puis alterner avec le symbole du X barré qui deviendra la manière courante de noter cette unité monétaire par la suite ? S’agit-il de conventions que nous devons ignorer, ou cela traduit-il une instabilité quant aux valeurs d’échange de la monnaie d’argent contre celle de bronze ?

Par ailleurs, dans un contexte séculaire d’allègement progressif des monnaies de bronze, pourquoi les poids subissent-t-ils des variations brutales, incluant un doublement durable des standards métrologiques à la fin du 2e siècle? Sommes-nous confrontés à un système pleinement fiduciaire où le poids n’importerait pas ? Mais comment alors expliquer que les dénominations les plus élevées soient généralement absentes ou peu représentées dans les émissions où le bronze est le plus sous-évalué ? Que penser des relations entre les normes pondérales du bronze et les marques présentes sur les monnaies d’argent, ou encore des séries de poids bimodaux qui apparaissent dans certaines dénominations fractionnelles ?

Pour le 1er siècle, il est ensuite souvent affirmé que les émissions légères de la période de la Guerre Sociale auraient été démonétisées par Sylla. Comment expliquer alors l’évidente contradiction de cette assertion avec la quasi absence d’émissions officielles de bronze jusqu’à Octave, pendant que des imitations de toutes sortes envahissent le marché ?

Ces considérations liées au monnayage doivent être mises en regard des témoignages littéraires et juridiques de la période. La République se livre à des manipulations monétaires durant la 2e guerre punique qui révèlent une parfaite compréhension de la relation entre valeur de la monnaie, valeur relative des métaux monétaires et pression effective de l’endettement. C’est dans cette optique que doivent être envisagés les buts de l’auteur de la lex Papiria et le rôle exact d’un Gratidianus, supposé avoir rétabli la confiance dans le monnayage de la République, ainsi que les descriptions de situations financières spécifiques issues de Cicéron.

Notre propos sera de démontrer que l’existence d’une relation stable entre le monnayage d’argent et de bronze, qu’elle soit de 1 pour 10 ou de 1 pour 16, n’apporte pas une explication satisfaisante à ces différentes constatations numismatiques et historiographiques. Bien au contraire, dans un contexte général marqué par l’abondance de l’argent métal, les fonctions très différentes du monnayage précieux et de la monnaie de base se matérialisent dans un degré d’instabilité dans les rapports de conversion durant cette période, aboutissant à un régime de change flottant durant certains moments spécifiques. Les conséquences patrimoniales de cette instabilité contribuent alors à définir les termes de la crise de la dette qui se révèle à partir du dernier tiers du 2e siècle. La polarisation des clivages politiques en fonction des intérêts financiers des différentes catégories en présence finit par affecter en retour la monnaie. Ainsi, l’évolution métrologique et numérique des composantes du système monétaire romain permet de suivre en creux l’histoire des conflits où s’affrontent les principales forces en présence à la fin de la République.

Cela nous amène à une nouvelle lecture des décisions et prises de position des acteurs les plus visibles de la période, qu’il s’agisse des Gracques, Sylla, Catilina, Cicéron, César ou Octave.

L'Antiquité connaissait l'usage des zones monétaires. Le royaume des Ptolémées en Égypte et celui des Attalides de Pergame, notamment, définirent un standard pondéral de leur monnayage d'argent-métal inférieur à la norme internationale de l'époque. Associé à un contrôle des changes, cela permettait aux trésors royaux d'encaisser un pourcentage en métal précieux prélevé sur tous les échanges extérieurs. La monnaie de bronze, fournissant la petite monnaie, offre un cas encore plus intéressant: surévaluée - sa valeur monétaire étant supérieure à celle de son métal - elle ne circule généralement que localement, devant sa valeur d'échange à l'autorité politique plus qu'à sa composition métallique. Lors de la conquête romaine, ces derniers n'imposent pas l'usage de leur monnaie aux cités grecques et asiatiques qu'ils absorbent. Deux systèmes monétaires se juxtaposent alors: un système impérial, basé sur l'or et l'argent, et des zones monétaires locales basées sur le monnayage de bronze frappé par les cités. Ces dernières contrôlent ainsi une partie de l'offre monétaire disponible sur leur territoire, tout en encaissant les profits issus de l'usage de leur souveraineté émettrice limitée, l'Empire se réservant le monopole de l'émission monétaire des métaux précieux. C'est l'application stricte d'une variante de ce que les Européens appelleront bien plus tard le principe de subsidiarité.
Ce système fonctionnera pendant près de quatre siècles, impliquant jusqu'à environ 300 municipalités subordonnées à l'autorité de Rome, vivant en paix et profitant d'un niveau de prospérité inégalé dans l'Ancien Monde. La réussite sur la durée de ce partage de souveraineté offre-t-il un degré de pertinence dans le cadre des crises du monde contemporain, et particulièrement dans le contexte troublé de l'Union Monétaire Européenne?

Were ancient Greco-Roman financial practices market-oriented or dominated by social rules embedded in tradition and status?
Since Moses Finley, generations of academics have worked and will still work around such questions.
As such, the 173 tablets of the so-called Sulpicii Archives have attracted much deserved attention since their discovery in 1959, as the largest surviving group of Roman-era financial transactions outside of Egypt.
On June 18, AD 37, the freedman Gaius Novus Eunus borrowed 10,000 sestertii from an Imperial freedman. By September 15, AD 39, he was bankrupt.
Our reconstruction of this set of loans suggests that the moneylenders increased the interest rates as the transaction turned sour, potentially the only such testimony in ancient Rome based on actual archeological materials.

In traditional economies, elites and state are financed through the available agricultural surplus. The Later Roman Empire offers quite a unique opportunity to measure and assess these mechanisms in the Western hemisphere, since its elaborate tax system has survived through scores of legal decisions, literary sources and papyrologic or epigraphic documents, the key moment being the comprehensive tax overhaul engineered by the emperor Diocletian from AD 287 onward.

An historiographic tradition hostile to the later Roman period and the Byzantine successor state led generations of scholars to assume that a confiscatory tax rate had become the norm. A closer study of the available evidence leads to quite an amended version: extraction levels did reach very high levels, but only during some specific moments of the period, while the average intake did not differ dramatically from the earlier imperial times. In essence, the assumption of a rigid and predatory system does not correlate well with the figures we are able to extract from the numerical sources. The extraction rate would have remained in a 20%-30% range of the gross agricultural production, the upper boundary being reached at times of major crises or expensive conquests, like during the reign of Constantius II in the 350s’ and then under Justinian until his death in AD 565. On the contrary, most of the 5th century would have witnessed tax rates stabilized as rather low levels.

Later Roman elites famously reached staggering levels of wealth: the richest families of the city of Rome would have derived incomes comparable to the tax income of entire small to medium sized provinces. As elites and state competed for the spoils of economic surplus through the parallel process of rent and tax, where the increase of one term of the equation could only be achieved at the expense of the other, the potential conflict between these two terms would have had immense bearing on the capacity of the Empire to sustain itself. To make the global picture more complex, elites were not only direct landowners, but often served the state in a capacity or another, leading to permanent overlaps between private and public vested interests.

Some of the strategies followed by groups of large landowners appear clearly, and should not surprise more modern observers. Since tax rates tended to be stable over long periods, as official censuses and assessments were costly and infrequent, increases of existing lands’ economic value were much sought after, provided they would not translate into higher taxation. This could be achieved through increased levels of manpower, hence the numerous official measures aiming at preventing tenants from moving from a place to another, and the attempts by landowners at attracting coloni from other areas. Other strategies aimed at securing large holdings of relatively undertaxed lands, like vineyards and orchards, or holdings of public land. Finally, as the state mostly devolved the tasks of extracting the land tax to groups of landowners, securing such roles generally ensured additional profits for these actors, as they could alter the manner by which overall tax liabilities could be allocated. The Egyptian documentation highlights some of those mechanisms, as contrasted tax rates are observed according to whether land would belong to a privilege group or not. 

This said, we cannot conclude at an overall game of mutual destruction between state and elites. If the sparser information available from the Western part of the Empire points at a rapid collapse of official income, there is no evidence that a lack of cooperation between the leading actors of the later imperial society would have been at the roots of that phenomenon. This is rather a progressive loss of territorial control that is at stakes, with fiscal information highlighting the progressive fragmentation of the West. Numismatic evidence points at the same reality, with interregional circulation of coins decreasing rapidly from the beginning of the 5th century onward.

In the East, the lower tax rates enjoyed during most of the 5th century did not prevent Leo, Zeno or Anastasius from piling up larges surpluses. The global picture leads to a rather cooperative game, where private and public interests reached a sustainable equilibrium. Then comes a sudden fiscal surge under Justinian, obviously aimed at supporting his program of reconquest. This does not seem to alter fundamentally the overall economic prosperity though, at least not until the great plague and the last difficult years of the reign. The working consensus between elites and state appears briefly endangered then, leading to a rapid normalization under his immediate successors.

If the fiscal history of the period allows for a qualitative and sometimes quantitative assessment of the conflicts between state and elites, the dynamic picture hence obtained does not display the overall destructive situation one should expect if elites and state had not managed to cooperate generally. This outcome should not come as a surprise: if the leading actors of the Later Roman Empire had been locked in a destructive conflict throughout the period, the survival and renewed expansion of the Eastern Roman state would not be understandable. In that sense, a rather successful symbiosis characterizes most of the period, even if local dynamics could endanger it at different moments. Rather than following a narrowly defined strategy deriving solely from individual private interests, the elites of the period behaved rather like conscious stakeholders of a system they aimed at preserving.

Were ancient Greco-Roman financial practices market-oriented or dominated by social rules embedded in tradition and status? Since Moses Finley, generations of academics have worked and will still work around such questions. As such, the 173 tablets of so-called Sulpicii Archives have attracted much deserved attention since their discovery in 1959, as the largest surviving group of Roman-era financial transactions outside of Egypt. On June 18, AD 37, the freedman Gaius Novus Eunus borrowed 10,000 sestertii from an Imperial freedman. By September 15, AD 39, he was bankrupt. Our reconstruction of this set of loans suggests that the moneylenders raised the interest rates as the transaction turned sour, possibly the only such testimony in ancient Rome based on archeological materials.

The European debt crisis has only started to unfold as European leaders have opted for a 1930s' style deflation. The way the Greek case has been handled means private investors, including the average European savers, should avoid the area. Essentially, the more the ECB steps-in in its support, the bigger the final losses will be. Younger Europeans will finally pick-up the remaining tab left by the baby-boomer generation.

The site presents a basic description of each published variety based on the ANS’ collection catalogue (MANTIS). Each of these type descriptions is linked to specimens present in the ANS collection and, where available, to images. Searches are made straightforward through a series of facets, presented in a way that will already be familiar to users of other ANS search tools.

Published in the later issue of the American Numismatic Society quarterly magazine, this paper describes the Online Coins of the Roman Empire project, a collaborative initiative whose aim is to provide a comprehensive online ctalogue of ancient Roman Imperial coins.
Please feel free to visit Mantis, the ANS collection online database :
http://numismatics.org/search

The exhibition will display 200 monetary objects lent by the American Numismatic Society, dating from the 7th century BC to current days. The rellability of money and the conditions for monetary dislocation are explored throughout the 5 continents monetary systems, with a focus on ancient Rome, pre-modern and modern France, 1862-65 and 1930s' US, 1923-Germany, 1946-Hungary, 1992-93 Yugoslavia, 19th and 20th Africa.

CLASS-UA 293 Through the Eyes of Coins: Trade & Wealth in the Ancient World, T 3:30 - 6:00, Peter Van Alfen and Gilles Bransbourg (both from the American Numismatic Society)
Coins are much more than just money. They are windows in the way people organize their politics, their societies, and, of course, their economies. Coins were first struck in the ancient Mediterranean world in the late 7th century BC and rapidly spread throughout Greece coinciding with the revolutionary changes that gave birth to the Greek city-state. Greek and Roman expansions led to increased monetization all across the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, shaping political structures, fiscal regimes, domestic and international trade. This course begins by looking at archaic Greece before coinage, seeking to understand what money was before coinage, and how trade and wealth were organized. Thereafter, it focuses on the ways in which coinage altered these organizations and structures through Greco-Roman antiquity, leading to entirely new concepts like fiduciarity, exchange rate risk, and inflation. The course will cover the history, methods and theories of numismatics, and will include hands-on experience with ancient coins, while dealing with the impact that coinage had on ancient societies.