Some questions about monetary history in Late Roman time

I try to have a clear picture in my head, and I just need to be sure that I've understood it correct.

Question 1: Constantius II (died 361) introduced the Fel Temp Reparatio reform of 348. It demonetized the coins of Constantine the Great (died 337). Is it correct? – Does that mean that all bronze coins of Constantine the Great were NOT in circulation after 348 in Roman Empire?

Question 2: Also from the Codex Theodosianus we can establish that AE1, AE2 and AE3 coins were also demonetized, and only allowed the tiny AE4 to circulate. Is it correct? – Do we know when it happened? Was it during the time of Theodosius I or Theodosius II?

Question 3: What was the point of taking AE1, AE2 and AE3 out of circulation and only letting the tiny AE4 to circulate?


In case you have deep understanding of the topic, I would be glad to hear it.

And I MIGHT have some few fellow up questions, but in order not to confuse myself and others I will wait for a while. Thank you.

 

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1- No, where did you get this from?? Even if any one emperor would have wanted to this decision would not have been possible. Sure, theoretically he could have issued an edict saying as much but it would have been entirely ignored. An emperor could, like Diocletian did, release a new monetary program with new coins and eventually the new currency would have supplanted the old from attrition and Gresham's Law. There is documentary evidence that 2nd century denarii were still circulating as currency right up til the very end of the empire (and probably long after). Merchants will not turn down perfectly serviceable silver.

2- No, again, this was not an effect of imperial decree. It was a symptom of inflation. It got so bad that eventually it broke into a two-tiered system. The solidus paid the critical bills (army, key infrastructure, the needs of the rich) and a trickle of overpriced shit coins to pay for common labor which then re-circulated in bazaars for low value commerce. There was no role for good silver or even well-made copper coins at this point because the government had neither the monetary incentive nor the public a need for them; the end stage of runaway deflation.

3- See the answer in the first two. Gresham's Law is remarkably efficient at removing better coinage to substitute with cheaper. And you literally could not get any cheaper than the leaded garbage that was the AE4.

Rasiel

 

As another modern-day example, if we restate your final question as "What was the point of taking [pre-'64 silver quarters and dimes] out of circulation and only letting the [clad quarters/dimes] to circulate?" the answer becomes self-evident.

Rasiel

 

From this: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/late-roman-coins-during-byzantine-era.379004/

"....The bronze coins of Constantine were almost certainly demonetized with the Fel Temp Reparatio reform of 348. We know from a law of Constans and Julian preserved in the Codex Theodosianus that the penalties for using "prohibited" coins were potentially severe. This is not to say that decades or even centuries later, obsolete coins did not sometimes return to circulation on a very limited basis...."

"The Theodosian AE4 nummus was effectively the only circulating bronze coin of the 5th century and was the basis of the reformed coinage of Anastasius...[...]"

"....we know from the Codex Theodosianus that the Constantinian bronze coinage had been demonetized at some point between 348 and 356. We also know that a law of 395, likewise preserved in the Codex Theodosianus, removed large bronzes from circulation, leaving the tiny AE4 as essentially the only bronze coin in circulation until the reform of Anastasius in 498...."





And I apologize if I've made a mistake by misreading it. English is my third language.

 

So, can I ask or refresh my question:

Did AE1-, AE2-, AE3- and AE4-coins minted during the time of Constantine the Great or Theodosius I still circulate in 400s, 500s and 600s in the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire?

 

Of course coins could potentially still circulate years later.

I have a Constantine I coin that was countermarked as a Spanish 4 maravedis in the 17th century.



Constantine I
A.D. 312- 313
22mm 4.1g
IMP CONSTANTINVS P F AVG; laureate, draped, seen from the rear.
SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI; Legionary eagle (to the left) between two vexilla, that on left surmounted by a right hand, that on right by a wreath; flag on the eagle.
in ex R S
RIC VI Rome 348

 

But that coin was most likely digged up from earth and restruck. Right?

Did such a coin also circulate in Constantinople, Theoupolis and Alexandria during the reign of Heraclius (610-641)?

 

Dear Marsyas Mike

I just checked your thread here:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/co...tiquity-the-byzantine-shops-at-sardis.352035/

I don't know if you will get notification from me, but I want to borrow you and ask you about the book "The Byzantine Shops at Sardis" by J. Stephens Crawford.

Here at page 69:




Does it prove that coins of Constantine the Great circulated in Sardis in the beginning of seventh century?

 

If we had documentation of AE1, AE2, and AE3 coins being demonetized, then we wouldn't be calling them AE1, AE2 and AE3 coins.

 

Well, I'm no archaeologist (or historian), so I am not sure what is "proved" or not. But in my opinion, it sure seems likely that Constantinian-era (and later) small LRB's circulated in Sardis, if only because so many were found in the rubble - I doubt people were collecting them the way numismatists do nowadays. If I had to guess, I'd say that they worked as small change next to the large Byzantine folles that were being issued in those days.

@rasielsuarez and others note that some (all?) Constantinian issues had been demonitized centuries before. But I'm not sure how enforced these laws were: what government was doing the enforcing? Eastern Roman (Byzantine)? If there were scads of small LRBs still to be found, people probably used them. That so many were found at Sardis certainly points in that direction. Perhaps they were more of a token coinage, like those "store cards" issued during the USA Civil War, not "really" money, but functioning like money. You couldn't pay your taxes with them, but you could make change in a tavern, shop, etc.

Somewhat along the same lines: the other day at the US Post Office I was given a 2007 Canadian one cent piece in change. Not only is it not legal tender in the USA, they stopped making them in Canada too. Yet here it is. As I live in Indiana, Canadian coins were often found in change here back in the 60s-90s (I'd look for them when I was a kid), though I haven't encountered one in a long time. What ever it's official status, this Canadian penny still functioned as money, and it will do so, at least until somebody refuses to take it when I try to buy something with it.

 

Marsyas Mike or others...

Were the bronze coins of Constantine "demonetized" with the Fel Temp Reparatio reform of 348? - Yes or no?

Were some coins (like AE1, AE2 and AE3) also "demonetized" based on Codex Theodosianus? - Yes or no?

 

Marsyas Mike answer: I don't know!

 

from the Codex Theodosianus

"If perchance ships should come to any provinces with merchandise, everything shall be sold with the customary freedom except the coins that are usually called majorinas or common centenionals or other moneys which are known to be forbidden." Codex 9.23.3 dated to sometime between A.D. 348- 356


"We command that only the centenional shall be handled in public use and that the coining of larger money shall be abolished." 12 April 395

 

I can answer the AE2/AE3 thing.

None of this is my research and I believe it comes from the numisforum member "Magnus Maximus." The decargyrus nummus (AE2) WAS demonetized under this law, and I'm not sure about the centenionalis (AE3), but it disappeared soon after. I believe both denomination names were mentioned in the law.

 

My reply came in at the same time as Victor's.

If the law was this vague, one wonders if the centenionalis mentioned was the AE4 by then? Although I've seen the 370's-380's AE3 called the centenionalis.

 

In "The Byzantine Shops at Sardis" by J. Stephens Crawford, when I search digitally after "AE4" and "AE3" I got a lot of result. And ”AE2” are fewer. And there are none for ”AE1”.

From a sloppy and superficial review, it appears that the AE-coins at Sardis were distributed like this in percent:

AE4: 40%

AE3: 40%

Ae2: 20%

AE1: No coin registered as such in Sardis.


Anyway, this topic is much more complicated than I thought, so I will investigate it more.

Thank you very much and I appreciate the inputs and I will maybe come back about some months later.

 

There was a lot of tinkering with the subsidiary coinage in the 4th century. Both numismatic and documentary evidence suggest a number of major reforms accompanied in some cases with demonetization.

Codex Theodosianus 9.23.1.3, a law of Constantius II and Julian Caesar dated to 356, provides that any merchant found in possession of "any coin other than that which continues in public use" shall have both the coins and his merchandise confiscated. The date coincides roughly with the second 'Fel Temp Reparatio' reform which introduced the reduced AE3 fallen horseman coins. Additionally, the law bans inter-provincial trade (speculation?) in coins per se, suggesting that not all coins were equally valued or equally distributed in all places. Specifically mentioned are the maiorina and the centenionalis, along with "other moneys known to be forbidden". Current thinking takes "maiorina" to refer to the large 'Fel Temp Reparatio' coins and "centenionalis" to mean the Constantinian bronzes of 318-348. "Forbidden money" is almost certainly a reference to the coins of Magnentius and Decentius. The Latin is ambiguous in places and the fine points remain open to debate, however.

Another law, Codex Theodosianus 9.23.2, this time of Arcadius and Honorius in 395, authorizes the continued use of a coin again called centenionalis while "larger coins", specifically the decargyrus, are to be withdrawn. Here, "centenionalis" almost certainly refers to the AE3/4 of the period while the "decargyrus" is believed to be the Theodosian AE2.

One takeaway is that the AE1, 2, 3 or 4 of one period is not necessarily the AE1, 2, 3 or 4 of another. We use those those generic terms specifically because we don't know precisely which coin is which and how the coins of one period compare with those of another.

 

No, this is not what I said. In fact, I hold the opposite view. In practical terms I don't think there was ever a time - in Roman history at least - in which there was a policy that was effective at selectively removing a denomination or the coinage of a specific ruler. Plain and simple, no one individual ever had the power or resources needed to do this. In the case of LRB proof of this can be seen in the many hoards with AEs spanning literal centuries from oldest to newest. The only plausible explanation is that they were traded contemporarily.

Rasiel

 

Deflation? No typo for inflation? I'm not asking it in a snarky way. I'm genuinely interested in learning.

Anastasius' reform seemed to be massively successful. The 'follis' continued in a remarkably stable form for centuries. Other than fiscal prudence, how did Anastasius manage to right the ship?

 

Sorry, Rasiel. I didn't mean to mischaracterize your position.

I completely agree with you on this - no individual had the power or resources to enforce demonetization even if they "decreed" such a thing. The use of money was much more ad hoc and "off the books" in antiquity than some seem to think.

As it so happens, I was reading an article about coins in an archaeological context that, like the shops at Sardis, indicate a wide array of coins issued and used over the centuries. In fact, in Roman Egypt, when coins ran short, people used lousy lead tokens:

"In addition to the billon and bronze coins, a large number of leaden pieces occurred. These I described fully in Num. Chron. 1908, pp. 287 ff., and the conclusions there stated have been generally accepted—viz : that these pieces were a token coinage of low value, issued approximately between 180 and 260, to replace the bronze, which ceased to appear in any quantity after the former date. The tetradrachms still circulated, and there must have been something to represent the lower denominations, obols and chalki, which are shown by the papyri to have been in regular use. If these tokens, of which over 300 were found, are included with the coins, they bring up the average of specimens between Commodus and Gallienus to that of the earlier and later periods."

"Whatever the explanation of the situation in the fourth century may be, in the fifth everything points to a complete economic collapse. There is not in the finds from Oxyrhynchus a single coin of recognisable official mintage belonging to the period between Honorius and Justinian. the only pieces that may be ascribed to this time are barbarous imitations of the issues of the Theodosian house, mere bits of bronze with degraded types, often reduced to a jumble of lines, and meaningless legends, sometimes nothing but dots and dashes. I have suggested (in a paper to appear in the Journal of Roman Studies) that these bits of bronze represent the "myriad of denarii" which was the unit of reckoning in Egypt at this period : the depreciation must have been somewhat parallel to that in Russia at the present day, as a late fourth century papyrus gives an equation of 2020 myriads of denarii to the gold solidus. Obviously it would not be worth while to spend any trouble over preparing a coin of such low value, which can hardly have had more meaning than a counter : in fact, the composition of hoards of this period suggests that the pieces of metal in them were treated as counters, since they consist of coins of various periods and countries, many worn to illegibility or clipped to fragments, with an intermixture of bits of bronze or even lead which show no stamp nor any sign of ever having been meant for coins.

The only thing about these barbarous imitations which suggests that they may have been issued officially is the fact that they struck not cast. In the early part of the fourth century large quantities of cast coins were in circulation in Egypt, and the moulds from which they were made are frequently found : I described two groyps from Oxyrhynchus in Num. chron. 1905, pp. 342 ff. These were probably the work of forgers, who would find it a profitable occupation to make counterfeit coin when the coin had an appreciable value above its metal contents. But in the conditions of the fifth century it would have been a waste of energy for an Egyptian forger to cast, much more to strike, anything purporting to be a bronze coin."

THE COINS FROM OXYRHYNCHUS By J.G. MILNE
http://www.coinsofromanegypt.org/html/library/milne/milne_CofO.htm

It is a very interesting article, and I hope it doesn't cause too much discouragement - there truly seems to be very little by way of an orderly official/demonetized process in the Roman world when it came to coins. Even if the Theodosian Code or other laws tried to do this, archaeology indicates that it was far less formal/legal than the decrees would indicate.