Dear Anticus, I've just sat down and read all three of your posts in a row. Your expertise with coinage I knew about, but putting it in the context of the early Empire is fascinating! (not to mention - never serious, moi - it's delightful to learn that the ancient Romans had not only quarter-as but half-as coinage).


Unfortunately, my grasp of economics now or then is primitive at best. But I remember reading Michael Grant years and years ago, in his introduction to ancient Rome, in which it made a large impression on me that, as the beaurocracy and military continued to expand, and trade begin to stagnate in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, taxation was the only means of keeping track with the increasing needs of the Empire. And your article (Cato Institute) notes,

Under Claudius (41-54 A.D.) the Roman Empire added its last major territory with the conquest of Britain. Not long thereafter, under Trajan (98-117 A.D.), the Empire achieved its greatest geographic expansion. Consequently, the state would no longer receive additional revenue from provincial tribute and any increase in revenues would now have to come from within the Empire itself. Although Rostovtzeff (1957: 91) credits the Julio-Claudian emperors with maintaining the Augustinian policy of laissez faire, the demand for revenue was already beginning to undermine the strength of the Roman economy.

OK, dumb question time. Wasn't all the tribute flowing into Rome from newly-conquered provinces like grease oiling the wheels of both Imperial excess and social programs like free grain, and when that started drying up due to no new conquests - and the population continued to increase - wasn't that a built-in recipe for eventual disaster? The Empire running up deficits due to taxes lagging behind continuing and increasing expenditure? (just keeping the armies paid in so many areas would have been enough to bankrupt any empire, it meseemeth).

OK, if anyone understands the cause-effect here, let me know! All I fully understand is, that by the third century, you had economic stagnation partly caused by civil and legal chaos, and everyone started either clipping their coinage or burying it!