****Anticus Cornelius - 4 Posts on this thread out of 77 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jul 19, 2003 - 06:00****

Any discussion of finance and trade during the Pax Romana
begins with the reform of the coinage by Augustus.
Davis Sear, in this excerpt from "Eight Hundred years of Roman Coinage", explains why:

"With the accession to supreme power of Rome's first emperor, Augustus (27 B.C. - A.D. 14), a whole new chapter in the history of the Roman coinage is opened. The social and economic life of the Roman state had been so disrupted by decades of civil strife that Augustus had to introduce sweeping reforms in almost every aspect of governmental responsibility. The currency reform was a gradual process spanning many years, but Augustus' main achievements were as follows: the gold aureus was now issued as a regular part of the currency system; production of the silver denarius, at first shared by many mints in important centers all over the Empire, was ultimately concentrated at Lugdunum in Gaul, which also came to be responsible for all gold issues; aes coinage was produced in abundance, for the first time in many generations, a sure sign that the economic life of the state was returning to normal under the aegis of the Augustan peace. The highest denomination in the new base metal coinage was the sestertius, valued at one quarter of the denarius. This was struck in orichalcum (brass) as was its half, the dupondius. Another metal, copper, was used for the as (one-sixteenth denarius) and its quarter, the quadrans. A less frequent denomination was the semis (half as) which, like the sestertius and dupondius, was struck in orichalcum. Production of the aes coinage was eventually concentrated in Rome, though the Gallic mints of Lugdunum and Nemausus each had a substantial output during the Augustan period. Special arrangements were made for the wealthy and important province of Asia, where triple-denarii (cistophori) were struck at various centers, such as Ephesus and Pergamum, in continuation of the Pergamene tradition and for the convenience of the local population.
The reformed monetary system of Augustus set the pattern for the Roman Imperial coinage for centuries to come, until the economy of the state collapsed in the dark days of the mid-3rd century A.D. Augustus' successors made minor changes to the currency but the basic system was left unaltered, a tribute to the thoroughness of the reformer's work."

Augustus set the relative value of the coinage according to the following table:

1 aureus=25 denarii=100 sestertii
1 quinarius=12.5 denarii=50 sestertii=200 asses
1 denarius=4 sestertii=16 asses
1 silver quinarius=2 sestertii=8 asses
1 sestertius=4 asses
1 dupondius=2 asses
1 as=1/4 sestertius
1 quadrans=1/4 as

This is a useful benchmark when examining issues like taxes, soldier's pay and the costs of goods and services, as well as the debasement of the coinage in the second century.

(from the Oxford Dictionary of the Roman Empire)