This chapter answers questions about economic growth in the late Republic, with a focus on the per capita GDP growth, and the reasons behind the growth or the lack of it. It examines the features of the Roman world which assisted growth or impeded it. The most important thing the Roman government did for the Roman economy was to conquer vast territories; the next most important thing, in this period, was probably to found colonies. Proof positive that the traditional understanding of Roman money is mistaken appears in 49 when the credit system tottered under the impact of civil war: nervous creditors began to seek payment even of the principal in silver, that is, coin. The conditions of labor, at least in the central parts of the Roman world, were dominated by slavery. It is estimated that in the very late Republic there were always four to eight million slaves and serfs in the Roman empire.

Coinage in the Roman world in the early fifth century consisted of a multi denominational system in gold, silver and bronze. The coinages of most of the new states passed through two phases: a pseudoimperial phase in which the coins purported to be issued with the authority of the current or some former emperor, and a national phase in which the inscriptions and designs deliberately reflected the state's independence. In Gaul and Britain the silver coins in circulation were clipped down to reduce their weight and the few new ones struck in Gaul were produced to a much reduced weight standard. Only the gold coinage was produced on a moderate scale, and came to dominate the currency. Of the three denominations in gold are solidus, semissis and tremissis. The coinages of the Visigoths, Sueves, Franks, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons and Lombards were essentially mono-metallic in gold, with some very limited and local issues of small silver and bronze coins (nummus).