#Denarius coin price cracked#

But the damage done to the Western Empire was never really repaired.Ī reform in the currency was inaugurated in the early part of the 4th century CE, but during and after Constantine I (r. The Empire was thus always able to pay its soldiers, and eventually re-absorbed the Gallic Empire and defeated the forces of Queen Zenobia. One of the reasons things held together at all was that the gold coins, those beautiful but frightfully expensive aurei, and their later replacements, those solidi that I will never possess, held their value relatively well. The old Empire did strike back, and was knitted together again in the 270s CE by a group of capable, no-nonsense generals led by Emperor Aurelian (r. I have coins from several of the rulers of the Gallic Empire, but a coin of Zenobia, which I'd love to get my hands on, is far out of my price range, worth many thousands of dollars. The Western regions of the old Empire became the so-called Gallic Empire, and the Eastern area of the Empire fell under the control of the redoubtable Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra (b.

#Denarius coin price cracked#

In the midst of this economic chaos, the Roman Empire cracked into three roughly equal parts. One of the reasons things held together at all was that the gold coinage held its value relatively well. (They apparently were economically astute barbarians).

284-305 CE about 600,000), or to pay off the barbarians, who would not accept any other metal but gold. Small landholders could not obtain mortgages unless they were paid for in gold, which did not inflate in value nearly as fast as the antoninianus.But most of the available imperial gold was used to pay the troops, which had expanded greatly in number from the time of Augustus (about 200,000) to that of Diocletian (r. Thus, the Romans were forced to abandon the silver coinage, and with it, any control of prices, which proceeded to rise 1000% in many parts of the Empire.īut what of the people of the Empire who lived under these dreadful economic conditions? How did they fare? The answer seems to be very poorly, similar to the people of any society experiencing hyperinflation (the example of Germany in 1923 CE comes to mind, though in Germany it was of much shorter duration than in the Empire). The Spanish mines were exhausted, and there was no one left to plunder.

But the emperors had run out of silver bullion. In ancient times, as now, this fooled no one. By that time, which my collection demonstrates in an instant, the silver denarius was long gone, replaced by the now bronze antoninianus (coin 6), which often contained a mere silver wash covering its surface. After him, the fineness declined precipitously in the early 250s CE (to about. 244-249 CE), the fineness of the antoninianus was down to about. By the reign of Emperor Philip the Arab (r.