I’ve not long ago gone back to start-again reading K. W. Harl’s,
Coinage in the Roman Economy, which I began last year and was interrupted by illness – so, I’ve not long ago started over again from the beginning.
A very interesting
work in my view.
Reflecting on what you’ve just said above, Bill, got me thinking of a couple things Harl has said which may be of some relevant interest here.
“The extent of circulation of coins in the countryside is best understood by an analogy to
medieval Europe, which was at least as rural as much of the
Roman Empire. Documents from A.D. 1000-1300 reveal that great numbers of ‘black
money,’ low grade silver
deniers, circulated between countryside and city every year in seasonal cycle; so too
denarii and bronze coins of the Principate or
billon nummi of the Dominate must have traveled for centuries.
“There was nothing inherently backward in the structure of the Roman economy that limited such a pattern of circulation.
“The Roman world, like other civilized societies before the industrial age, drew its wealth from the land…”
~ Also …
“The
success of Roman currency rested upon its silver coins, which over the centuries often suffered recoinage, debasement and revaluation that directly affected the supply and use of coins, and thus state expenses, taxes, and prices in the marketplace.
Romans employed as their principal coin a modest-sized silver
denomination, the
denarius (measuring 22-20 mm in
diameter), for nearly five centuries (264 B.C. – A.D. 238); bronze and
gold coins served as its subsidiary fractions and multiples. Various
billon coins, reckoned in notational
denarii (
denarii communes or d.c.), followed for a century (A.D. 251-367), but they yielded primacy again to
fine silver coins that recalled the
denarius and inspired the pennies and deniers of
medieval Europe and the
dirhems of the Caliphate.”
(Harl,
CITRE; pgs. 4, 6 respectively. All punctuation and italics as in the original).
If, indeed, the first
denarius (
denarii) are rather held to date to ca. 211 B.C., of course I can’t account for Harl’s date here of 264 B.C. Even so, I don’t think it detracts from the inherent & compelling reasoning expressed in the main.
Best,
Tia