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Author Topic: siliqua vs miliarense?  (Read 1489 times)

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Vladimir

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siliqua vs miliarense?
« on: June 12, 2007, 01:33:24 am »
 If there are any difference in weight, purity?

Offline PeterD

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Re: siliqua vs miliarense?
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2007, 05:17:31 am »
When the Miliarense was introduced around 338, there were several sizes:
Siliqua (3.4 gms)
Miliarense (4.5 gms)
Heavy Miliarense (5.4 gms)
3 Miliarense (13.5 gms)
9 Siliqua (13.6 gms)

There were other fractions and multiples later on, but generally speaking the purity of the silver remained fixed.
Peter, London

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Offline Heliodromus

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Re: siliqua vs miliarense?
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2007, 06:33:29 am »
The date of introduction was actually a bit earlier - c.320 under Constantine (incl. coins for Crispus d.326).

Ben

Offline PeterD

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Re: siliqua vs miliarense?
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2007, 06:56:25 am »
The date of introduction was actually a bit earlier - c.320 under Constantine (incl. coins for Crispus d.326).

Ben


There were indeed silver denominations from that date. Sear calls these Miliarense or whatever. However if you cross reference these to RIC, that book just calls them "silver" and the weights given are all over the place. It seems to have been sorted by 338, which is why I gave that date.
Peter, London

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Offline Heliodromus

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Re: siliqua vs miliarense?
« Reply #4 on: June 12, 2007, 08:14:48 am »
From what I've seen Constantinian silver in general - the early argenteus as well as these later denominations from c.320 - all seem to have surprisingly poor weight control, but they are still clustered around these nominal weights (mostly siliqua & miliarense). In some cases (e.g. RIC VII Sirmium 14 - Crispvs Et Constantinvs CC) a single RIC listing seems to maybe cover multiple denominations of the same reverse type rather than just a very broad weight range.

It's be interesting to know why the weight control was so poor. Were these really used as coins vs bullion (i.e based on weight), or was the face value higher than the bullion content so that it didn't matter so much anyway? Still odd since the weight control for gold seems to have been much better and the volume of silver doesn't seem to have been so great as to necessitate sloppyness.

Ben

Offline Goodies

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Re: siliqua vs miliarense?
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2007, 10:33:36 am »
hi,

Quote
Were these really used as coins vs bullion (i.e based on weight), or was the face value higher than the bullion content so that it didn't matter so much anyway?

I think we can't compare Roman imperial coin use to medieval practice, where coin weights were very common and coins from many countries circulated together. Bullion value was an important reference to compare all these different  coins. In Roman times, the imperial coinage had a monopoly status. A Denarius was a Denarius and later, Argenteus remained Argenteus. Enough freedom for corrupt coin houses to fiddle with weight. As far as I know, this was common practice for silver. Bronze has always been varying (much larger range too)

:)
Lx

 

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