Did Roman coins of previous emperors stay legal tender during other emperors rei

[phillip h3]

I am new to this great hobby, coming to it from an interest in ancient Rome. Having a discussion with my wife, she asked if an unpopular emperors coinage was unpopular after his death and did it cease to be used.
How long did an emperors coinage stay legal tender after his death.
Any help out there would be much appreciated.

[dougsmit]

The vast majority of coins remained after their issuer was long gone as long as the denominations and weight standards did not change making them obsolete.  The few exceptions were when a ruler was condemned more than usual.  The coins of Pescennius Niger did not circulate after his death presumably because Septimius Severus ordered it.   Other defeated men's coins stayed.  There were coins of Mark Antony still circulating 200 years after he died mostly because his denarii were low grade silver and people spent them rather than hoarding them like they would better coins.  Most coins did not disappear because of politics but because of their metal content.

The factor that caused coins to go out of circulation was changes in the money systems and constant debasement of the silver coinage.  A series of coinage reforms caused previous coins even of the current rulers to be replaced in daily commerce so you would not see pre-reform coins circulating in the post-reform marketplace any more than today you see UK shillings with Queen Elizabeth II still circulating.

 

[phillip h3]

Thanks alot Doug that was interesting.

[Romanorum]

How long did an emperors coinage stay legal tender after his death.

The other interesting question you might ask yourself is, how do we know? The answer is, of course, archeological evidence. And as with many things Roman, such evidence is found in troves at Pompeii.  As Doug mentioned, Mark Anthony's coins (minted throughout the 30's BC) continued to circulate for a long time. A few of them were found at Pompeii (destroyed AD 79), so more than a hundred years later they were still circulating regularly. Here's a photo of some of them at the Naples Museum.

[dougsmit]

To me, the best example of this is the Reka Devnia hoard of 81000 silvers with the last being mid 3rd century AD.  Included were 29 Antony legionary denarii.  Next came 102 Neros of types from after his debasement began.  There were no other Republican/Imperatorials or Julio-Claudians.  There also were no Pescennius Niger though there were 54 of Pertinax and 184 of Clodius Albinus.  That 29 coins made it that long suggests that no one really wanted the things due to their poor silver.  Of course most of the coins in the hoard were the normal common rulers that one would expect to be in circulation when the hoard was deposited.  We really can't say that they circulated 250 years since the hoard might have been assembled by several generations of a family so the last coins could have been put in the pot a century after the first. 

[Sap]

Firstly, one should clarify: the concept of "legal tender" is a fairly modern one. In ancient times, gold and silver coins had value because of their metal content, not because the government declared that they had value. An unpopular emperor's coinage was (usually) still made of good silver and good gold, and would be accepted as such.

The Roman judgement of damnatio memoriae was made against several emperors; though their names were obliterated from whatever monuments and documents could be found, coins were usually not defaced; they were either left alone or (perhaps more likely) melted down completely and the metal used to make new coins. Very few surviving coins have been defaced; given that coinage of condemned emperors is not noticeably scarcer than that of other emperors, it can be concluded that damnatio did not significantly affect the coinage.

If one considers "acceptance by the government in payment of taxes" as a definition of "legal tender", then of course the government would have accepted old coins. Since the fineness of the silver denarius and the weight of the gold aureus both gradually declined over time, and the government itself was fully aware of this, they would have known that most older coins were of generally better quality metal than newer coins and would therefore be worth more; this metal could then be recoined to the new debased standard for instant profit to the government. For example, ten denarii of Caligula could be melted down to make about twelve early denarii of Nero, thirteen denarii of Hadrian or twenty denarii of Septimus Severus.

Finally, we must be cautious in making conclusions about "which coins circulated" at any given time when all we really have to go on are coins that survive to today; by definition, these are coins that were lost, buried, cached or otherwise ceased circulating.