The fiscal stress of the Second Punic War led to the creation of a new Roman monetary system around 211 BCE. Based on the denarius, a coin initially minted at 72 to the pound of silver, this system would spread throughout the Empire and remain in use for centuries. ...
(Show more)The fiscal stress of the Second Punic War led to the creation of a new Roman monetary system around 211 BCE. Based on the denarius, a coin initially minted at 72 to the pound of silver, this system would spread throughout the Empire and remain in use for centuries. However, the initial period of the denarius coinage remains the least understood. Why, for example, did the weight standard of the denarius (as well as its bronze fraction, the as) fluctuate so much in the early decades of its production? Why does the production of bronze coinage decline steadily beginning in the 150s? Why was the denarius revalued in the 140s BCE? Why did Roman coinage spread to different provinces at different rates? To shed new light on these old questions, this paper will examine the institutions and groups most likely responsible for spreading the use of the denarius in the second century BCE: the Roman army, societates (partnerships involved in state contracts), bankers, and merchants. Rome’s new monetary system spread hand in hand with more sophisticated financial practices and, while its success was undoubtedly the result of the unprecedented amounts of precious metal pouring into the Roman treasury, its evolution – the changes in the content and face value of the coins as well as the overall composition of the money supply – was due to a series of negotiations between the state and the main ‘consumers’ of its coinage.
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