Speaker
Description
In a 2013 paper (What happened to gold coinage in the 3rd c. A.D.?’, JRA 26) I showed that while gold coins of this period are scarce as single finds and in hoards, die-studies show that production was as high as in the 2nd century. Aurei ceased to be struck to a consistent weight standard at this time, pointing to a change in their use. It was suggested that the State became better at recovering gold coins, so that there were fewer to be hoarded or lost. The Oxford coin hoard project now gives us a rich dataset of hoards and many finds of Roman gold from eastern Europe have also come to light. This talk will examine the evidence in the light of these new data, seeking to understand better the transition from the early Roman monetary economy which was fiduciary orchartalist’ to the late Roman `metallist’ economy.
