Objectives

Ancient Roman silver coinage became more debased with copper as time went by. Graph 1 shows periods of relative stability in silver content and then periods of rapid decline. With each war, economic crisis, or political crisis the silver coins became more debased. Walker says that the debasement of Roman coinage almost always occurred at times of particularly high state expenditure. This expenditure occurred during times of war, plague, and power struggles (Walker 1978: 138). Reforms directly after the crises brought the silver content back up somewhat, but the trend is always towards more debasement over the long run (See graph).

Finding the midpoint in the long-term downward curve of debasement is a good point of reference for my experiment. According to Grant, the main reason for debasement was the impoverishment of the Roman treasury due to financing of wars (Grant 1954: 247). Because debased coins were minted even after crises were over, it did not matter if recreation coin’s silver content did not correspond to a specific crisis. For example, the debased coins that resulted from wars that happened in the 2^nd century A.D. still had much higher silver content than the coins minted in relative stability in the 3^rd century A.D. The debased coins I replicated corresponded to Elagabalus’ reign (218-222 A.D.). His reign was one of the last before a true crisis broke out through the Roman Empire. These coins averaged around 60% silver (Walker 1978: 47). By 253 A.D., where the graph stops, coins averaged about 35% silver.

The almost pure silver coins I replicated corresponded to the time of the first emperor, Augustus (B.C. 27- A.D. 14). These coins averaged 97% silver (Walker 1976:5). That said, my primary objectives are:

1) Describing the practical details of minting two Roman coins from two different time periods.

2) Finding the method (hot or cold striking) that is most conducive to efficiently striking each coin.

3) Drawing conclusions, if any, about labor organization in the mints respective to what methods they used.

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Graph 1