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  • 11 - Coinage and taxation: the state's point of view, a.d. 193–337

  • from PART IV - THE ECONOMY OF THE EMPIRE
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 327-392

  • Summary

    Coinage serves as a point of reference in the political, social and military life of the Roman empire. This chapter examines the problems of coinage and tax system in the specific context of the Roman economy, an economy that is neither modern nor archaic, but more simply different from subsequent ones. Coins are among the best preserved and the most thoroughly studied artefacts of imperial period. Throughout the period, the Roman coinage combines, three categories of coins corresponding to three categories of metals: gold, silver and aes or pure copper, or copper mixed with other metals. The currency is made up of a certain quantity of metals minted as coins and put into circulation. The metal stock is actually subject to three types of outflows: hoarding, the export of currency and the wear of coins. At the end of the third century, taxation perhaps replaces the coinage as a unifying factor.