Roman Empire (contemporary) detection of forgeries?

[Alexx K]

Does anyone here know any sources which talk about how people living in the time of the Roman Empire would have gone about detecting forged coins?

(I've spent quite a while with Google, and couldn't come up with any search terms that weren't swamped by results about modern forgeries.)

[Jay GT4]

Off the top of my head I don't know of any sources but there are many examples of chisel, cut and "bankers" marks on ancient coins.

[PeterD]

Only bankers or moneychangers would have had an interest in checking for fakes. As Jay has said, cutting a suspect coin would check whether it was a fouree or not.

The man in the street would have had no incentive to check for fakes. What good would it do him if he found one? Better just to spend it.

[Joe Sermarini]

The man in the street who was on the coin receiving end of a transaction had an incentive to check for fakes. Only after the coin was accepted, would the incentive to detect disappear. Even then, spending it would have had similar risks to spending counterfeit money today. He might not want to spend it.

[PeterD]

Today we have the advantage of technology, books and photographs to be able to detect a Roman contemporary fake. (or in the case of a fourree, corrosion). Back in the day, when every coin was a different shape and weight and when there were multiple designs in circulation it would have been extremely difficult to point to a single coin and say that it was a fake. After all, the fact that it was a silver coin (apparently) of around the right size and weight was all that really mattered. Counterfeiters routinely put the wrong obverse with the wrong reverse, without apparently worrying about detection.

A shopkeeper, if he wanted to make a check, would have to do it at the point of sale before the customer walked away. The only check would be to cut every coin in front of the customer. I don't think that happened.

[SC]

There is an intriguing line in Pliny the Elder's Natural History which, though not explaining how they were detected, does speak of people's interest in them.

Book XXXIII: 132 (taken from my Penguin edition):

"Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that in this field alone bogus specimens are objects of study, so that an example of a forged denarius is subjected to close scrutiny and an adulterated coin costs more than genuine ones."

This almost sounds like there were people collecting contemporary forgeries in Pliny's time.

Shawn

[Alexx K]

I'm not so much interested in "man on the street" detection as I am in a government official trying to track down counterfeiters. (Research for a novel.) Thanks.

[PeterD]

There were (at least early on) officials called 'nummulari' who were responsible for the purity of the coinage, which must have included the problem of fakes. I don't think to much is known about them. They might have tested for fakes by cutting or weighing but that wouldn't have given any clue to those making the counterfeits.

[SC]

If you can explain more we might be able to help more.  (Feel free to PM or send me an email if you wish.)

What period of Roman history?   

We know a fair bit about the structure of late Roman bureaucracy, but it doesn't all translate to earlier periods.  The structure of mints and Imperial treasuries differed at different times.

What kind of coinage - gold, silver or bronze? 

The minting of precious metal coinage was sometimes under very different administration from that of base metal coinage - different mints, different authorities responsible - and sometimes not.  It depends on the time period.

Also what exact type of counterfeits do you mean.  The methodologies of detection would differ greatly.  Silver gilded to look like gold?  Bronze plated to look like silver?  Underweight or under-purity silver?  Bronze made from stolen or counterfeit dies, or bronze cast in clay moulds?

At what stage of the economy are they tracking down the counterfeits?

Many different officials may have had responsibility.  Mint officials at or near the production end.  Treasury officials for central storage and then distribution of coinage.  Certain special army units if the problem surrounds army pay - which is how a good chunk of the coinage entered circulation in the first place.  Certain local city officials had responsibility for coinage and weights in markets and towns.

Shawn

[Alexx K]

I am researching a novel by Alan Moore, _Voice of the Fire_. One chapter is set in Roman Britain, circa 290 AD. The narrator of the chapter is a Roman official, looking for counterfeiters in Britain. He does eventually find some, detecting impure silver by weight. However, in the course of the narrative, several other means of detecting forgeries are mentioned, including heating coins while they rest on a white-hot iron shovel. I'm trying to locate sources (if any) that Moore may have been basing these accounts on, if he wasn't just making it all up.

[Jay GT4]

By 290 there wouldn't be many pure silver coins being minted in Britain or anywhere else in the empire as silver coinage was completely debased.  There were a few attempts to bring purity back up with the argentus and siliqua but both were relatively short lived.  Sounds like he's making it up but this is really not my area of collecting.

[SC]

Sadly, a lot of authors do a very poor job in distinguishing among the different eras of Roman history.

As Jay notes, in this case they appear to be thinking of coinage from a century or two earlier.

I remember a series from an author, fairly well selling stuff, which had his Roman hero using all the "typical" Roman military gear - gladius, pugio, lorica segmentata - unfortunately his books were set after Valens' death at Adrianople in 378, meaning all those items had ceased to be used long before.  Legionaries of 378 didn't look a thing like legionaries of 78 or 178.

Shawn


 

[Innavigabilis]

There is an interesting passage in Apuleius that might speak to the topic. It is this description of a miser: "He is constantly lending at high interest, with gold and silver as security, but he keeps himself shut up in a tiny house, worrying about every speck of copper-rust." (Loeb edition of the Metamorphoses, page 45). The Latin reads "exiguo lare inclusus et aerugini semper intentus." 

It would be nice to know just what the "copper-rust" referred to consists of. The dictionaries I checked online indicate that "aerugini" means verdigris, rust or corrosion (in non-ferrous metals).

And there is “aurum et argentum vestrum aeruginavit," or "Your gold and your silver are corroded", from the Vulgate, James 5:3. This usage is late 4th century, a couple of centuries after Apuleius. Here the word is used specifically in reference to precious metals.

So - could the miser in Apuleius be looking for the core of a fouree showing through? Or is he worried about his sestertii going bad (early bronze disease!)?
 

[SC]

Very interesting passages. 

My guess for the Apuleius is the latter - the bronze disease.

Looking through your silver (and gold) for signs that they are fourees seems to me like a normal and logical precaution that everyone should have taken.

Whereas being concerned in case any of your stored bronze coinage starts to get some BD or verdigris seems like the sort of exaggerated behaviour that Apuleius might want to emphasize as miserly.

The James 5 3 comes right after a comment about clothes that have decayed.  A similar meaning might make sense for silver.  Your silver has tarnished as has your soul.  But gold does not tarnish - though that might not have been so widely known back then as few people actually had experience handling gold. 

Just my guesses though.

Shawn

[Alexx K]

By 290 there wouldn't be many pure silver coins being minted in Britain or anywhere else in the empire as silver coinage was completely debased.  There were a few attempts to bring purity back up with the argentus and siliqua but both were relatively short lived.  Sounds like he's making it up but this is really not my area of collecting.

Well, to be fair, the 'punchline' of the chapter is that the official discovers that the forged coins are *heavier* (and thus, more pure) than the sample he has from Rome's mint. The debasing of the coinage becomes a metaphor for Rome's decline.