How come Hispania had no later Roman Imperial Mints?

[Pharsalos]

Forgive me if this question has been asked before. Why is it that the huge (and early) province of Hispania did not have a single later Roman imperial mint? I know that some coins were minted there (Tarraco, Emerita etc.) in the early empire and into the Flavian dynasty. Yet after that, the closest official imperial mints were Lugdunum and later Arelate; which themselves supplied very large geographic areas. Surely the population and economy of Hispania would have required significant volumes of coinage. Where did it come from?

[*Alex]

I do not know when the mint closed but Tarraco was still in use well into the third century.

The coin below was minted at Tarraco following the death of Claudius II.



*Alex.

[SC]

Most scholars agree that Roman coins were struck to meet the needs of the state and not of the populace.  They were primarily intended to pay the employees of the state - the soldiers and the bureaucrats.  To a lesser degree they were intended to help facilitate the payment of taxes.  But there was really no effort put towards aiding regular civilian commerce.  Coins were intended to "trickle down" into civilian commerce from official uses.  As Hispania had few garrisons, due to a lack of hostile frontier, and little in the way of bureaucratic infrastructure, it had no mint.

Many Eastern cities maintained intermittent issues of bronze coinage for local use.  In Hispania this ended by the second half of the 1st century AD.  After that they relied on coinage from other mints.  At times unofficial copies were made in Hispania - mid-1st c AD, mid-3rd c AD. 

In the late Roman empire the needs of Hispania were apparently met by Arelate in southern Gaul.  Hispania had some other odd characteristics.  For some reason they really liked the larger AE2 coins during the late fourth century.  Thus finds of the REPARATIO REIPVB type are common.  But interestingly, when this ceased to be struck in the late 380s the AE2 GLORIA ROMANORVM type, which was only struck in the East, was imported in large numbers.

Shawn

[Pharsalos]

Thank you both for your replies. I never realised before that the mints were nearby trouble spots or administrative centres. It makes sense to have the mints nearby the armies that need the pay. Yet I thought perhaps Roman authorities would have encouraged the use of coinage in day-to-day commerce, as this would make tax collection much easier and the profits of seigniorage would be pretty high, especially in the later third century for example, when 20 copper silver-washed coins were supposed to be worth a 6/7 gram gold aureus.

Take the FEL TEMP series of Constans/Constatius II. The large/medium/small combination of types suggest at least some desire on the part of authorities for day-to-day commercial use rather than just military or bureaucratic use. Why was it that the mints of Heraclea, Cyzicus, Nicomedia, Thessalonica and Constantinopolis, which are geographically all relatively close, were all minting coins at the same time? Surely a mint in the administrative capital of Constantinopolis and one or two others would suffice. Yet the resource rich and economically vibrant Hispania gets nothing? Is it possible that a lack of currency in Hispania would somehow benefit the empire, for example to encourage taxes to be paid in resources like metals or produce at a favourable rate to the empire?     

[PeterD]

The money already in circulation doesn't get 'used up', it gets used over and over. Extra money coming into circulation by way of payment to troops, who don't produce real wealth can be and was in fact inflationary. So Spain was probably better off without it's own mint. I don't think areas without their own mints suffered economically compared with anywhere else. Most of the extra mints were established by Aurelian presumably based on the requirements at that time.

[SC]

You raise good questions.  The proximity of the so-called propontic mints (Heraclea, Constantinople, Nicomedia and Cyzicus) plus nearby Thessalonica does seem odd, especially when you look at Iberia and, for most of the time Africa, with no mint and huge populations.

However it relates to the administrative side.  The mints are generally located one per administrative district IF the district had sufficient military to require it.  If no need then no mint.  A second mint per district existed in exceptional cases usually out of some military necessity.  So despite the proximity of those five mints they filled the needs of different administrative districts and thus different commands.

The RIC volumes cover the details fairly well.

I am not sure what you are referring to about the 20 silver washed coins equaling one aureus.  The so-called aurelianus of 274 - 294, often marked XXI, was worth 1/20th of the equivalent coin in silver (which was actually only a theoretical construct as that silver coin did not exist).  Given the silver - gold ratio this meant around 200 to the gold coin.  The larger nummus (aka follis) of 294 - 307 was likely worth around 1/80th or 1/40th of a gold coin (12.5 dc and then 25 dc versus 1000 dc).

Shawn     

[dougsmit]

I do not know when the mint closed but Tarraco was still in use well into the third century.

The coin below was minted at Tarraco following the death of Claudius II.



*Alex.

What is it that suggests this coin is Tarraco? The T?  Considering the type is seen with P, S, T and Q, I assumed these were ordinals of officinae.  Has someone published a rework of the series attributing these to Tarraco?

I am not sure what you are referring to about the 20 silver washed coins equaling one aureus.  The so-called aurelianus of 274 - 294, often marked XXI, was worth 1/20th of the equivalent coin in silver (which was actually only a theoretical construct as that silver coin did not exist). 

If we state this same ratio as XXI meaning 20 parts alloy to 1 part silver, we avoid the need to explain the lack of an imaginary coin actually made of pure silver.   Today, we prefer to state alloys as decimals (.925) but the Romans seemed to have preferred giving a recipe: 'Add one part silver to twenty parts copper' resulting in 4.77% alloy.

[*Alex]

What is it that suggests this coin is Tarraco? The T?  Considering the type is seen with P, S, T and Q, I assumed these were ordinals of officinae.  Has someone published a rework of the series attributing these to Tarraco?

Hi Doug,

I used this online source. http://www.scribd.com/doc/17913455/Maerkl-the-Coinage-of-Claudius-II-Engl
From what I can remember Maerkl thought some coins should be attributed to Tarraco which RIC attributes to Milan. However, in my gallery I hedged my bets by attributing the coin to either Mediolanum or Tarraco. 

Unfortunately the link now seems to be deleted, it was sent to me by another FORVM member way back in 2011. Perhaps you can find the reference somewhere else. I will try and look for it myself tomorrow.
Helvetica used to have a translation posted on FORVM but that has also been removed.

Alex.

[dougsmit]

My concern is that the Maerkl article is 1894.  I have no idea of what has been done since but I can not accept Tarraco without some further information. 

[Joe Sermarini]

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Mint%20Marks

[curtislclay]

Voetter assigned some late Roman coins from Gallienus to Constantine and family to the mint of Tarraco, but all more recent numismatists have rejected this attribution.

Folles with T were the main bone of contention: Tarraco according to Voetter, Ticinum according to all later numismatists.

[*Alex]

I agree with Dougsmit that the P, S T and Q mint-marks most likely refer to the officina. Where then was my coin actually struck? I want to correct the attribution in my gallery.

Alex.

[SC]

Yes Maerkl dates to a time when it was widely thought that the Tetrarchic coins now attributed to Ticinum (modern Pavia) were from Tarraco, Spain.  I am not sure why he thought these posthumous Claudius coins were from Tarraco as well - maybe just the T in the exergue.  However, the T mark is certainly an officina mark.

The coin type was struck at Siscia with the obverse legend DIVO CLAVDIO and with P, S, T and Q underneath for the four officina.  However, CONSECRATIO coins with your obverse legend DIVO CLAVDIO GOTHICO are only found at Mediolanum according to Gobl (MIR 47).  There is it only found with the T in the exergue where it is Gobl 23k.  However, other types struck contemporaneously carry the other officina marks, i.e. P on MARTI PACI and S on FIDES MILIT.  There is no Q as Medionalum operated with only three officinae at this time.  Thus we can be certain that the T means that it is from Mediolanum's third officina.

Gobl places 23k in Aurelian's first emission from Mediolanum which he dates to "early 371".

Shawn

[*Alex]

Thank you very much Shawn. I assume 371 is a typo and you mean 271. 

Alex.

[SC]

Sorry.  It is a typo for 271.

Shawn

[Pharsalos]

I see, thank you for your detailed reply Shawn. I don't have a copy of RIC; I will have to seek that out one day as I find the Roman selection of long term minting sites puzzling at times. Somehow there must have been significant inflows of coinage into the province of Hispania to make up for loss, wear and hoarding and (presumably) an expanding economy. Your information that the large Ae 2 Gloria Romanorvm from the east are found frequently is interesting. Do you think it was bagged and imported intentionally, or was it entering Hispania because of some specific trading connection with the east? I still wonder if there may be some connection to the rich metal resources of Hispania and a lack of a dedicated mint. If Hispania minted her own coins, from her own metal, to pay for her own produce, locals might justifiably wonder why they needed Rome at all.

As for xxi antoninianii, I thought I read somewhere that one hypothesis was that it was a mark of the relationship to the aureus. I think it might have been my old copy of Sear. 

[SC]

Callu, who pointed out the Hispanian liking for late AE2s, was certain that it they were imported by choice.  Of course it was still likely due to trade but it is interesting that one area (Hispania) got many AE2s while southern Gaul and Italy did not (they only had the AE4s by then).

I don't think that Spain was such an important source of metal by the late Roman era but I might be wrong.

You can search and find several good forvm threads dedicated to the XXI mark.

The brief summary is that it was thought for a long while to be a value mark - 20 sestertii and therefore 5 denari communes.  However, that argument is disproved by the existence of a few short lived issues with XI on them.  If it were a value mark then they should be half value yet they actually have twice the silver content of the XXI and thus are worth twice intrinsically.

There are two remaining views of the XXI.  One is that it means "20 for 1" and the other that it means "20 and 1". 

In the "20 for 1" theory it means it is worth one 20th of a silver coin.  The problem is there was no silver coin issued during this period (274 - 294).  Two theories have been put forward in response.  One is that it was for a silver coin that was intended by Aurelian but never introduced.  The second is that it referred to silver denarii of the 2nd and early 3rd century which were still in circulation and still legal tender.  The mark is thus one of value but by ratio and not by absolute value.

In the "20 and 1" theory it means that the coin is made up of 20 parts bronze and one part silver.  The mark is thus a guarantee of purity.  The assays of the coins from Aurelian through Probus appear to match this quite well though it fineness level falls a bit under Carus and Diocletian.

The XI coins work in either system.  Given their doubled silver content they are either worth 1/10th of a silver coin or have 10 parts bronze to one part silver.

I personally favour the latter argument.

Shawn

[Pharsalos]

Thanks again Shawn, many interesting facts I didn't know. Perhaps the greater number of AE2s was simply related to the stability and affluence of Hispania, in the same way that richer areas of earlier imperial Rome didn't bother with semis or quadrans.

I was not aware of the xi antoninianii before; that is certainly a compelling argument if the silver content is double the xxi issues. I agree that these are unlikely to have been intended to relate to earlier silver denarii - I think citizens would have been well aware of the wide range in purity (and weight) these were minted in over the 2nd and 3rd centuries. They would need to have been traded as bullion and their value allowed to float with purity and weight.