I don't doubt that the central thesis is the most likely.
However, looking at Mr. Clay's central paragraph made me wonder a few things. Was there always room in the given facilities for such large expansions?
What actually occured if the
officinae doubled in a relatively short period. Doubling of the number of skilled employees (like engravers)? Maybe in cases where
officinae at some mints closed while those at others opened but unlikely when there was overall growth as you don't just hire these artisans on the street. Double the number of unskilled employees? Certainly easy to do. Double the number of forges, anvils, etc? And, most importantly for my point double the amount of space required?
If the space requirement went up how easily could this need be
met? You could argue that the
mint was a very important function and likely to get priority. However, the heart (if that is indeed where mints were located) of any
Roman city was a very densely packed
area and mints might have been cheek to jowl with other high priority functions - temples, courts,
military offices, etc.
The existence of the travelling/wandering gold mints at certain periods shows that the
shop elements of a
mint could be relocated.
So, while I am not arguing for any conscious plan to located different
officinae in different locations I am not sure that we could rule out the idea of a
mint being situated in more than one location in a city for some perids of time.
Shawn
PS Are all ancient literary references to mints indexed anywhere? I though I saw such an
index somewhere but can't recall where now.