This morning I found a new website, www.cgb.fr -- with a considerable number of ancients and (because it's French) medievals from what is now France and its colonies. The site is entirely in French, but there are buttons to push for translation into English, Spanish, German, Italian, and others. The images are of very high quality. Here's an example, a Merovingian denier:
Yes, CGB is probably the larger dealer in France, and the best source for any French coins, especially celtic.
They used to be famous for their very high quality auction catalogs. I am not sure if they still print them with the internet nowadays. They are starting e-auctions, so its worthwhile to check them out regularly.
This website, and the coin pictured, raises a question in my mind -- how did these various peoples in Europe get newly-struck coins into circulation? Did the king spend them for goods and services? Did the peasants and merchants then end up with coins, and use them on market day? Did the coins trickle down as "salary" to soldiers, or as donations to the clergy? Were there numerous assayers and minters, or just one source, controlled by the king? Maybe the peasants and the poor never took possession of coins at all, relying strictly on barter? I'd like to know more about the process.
In most ancient civilizations I have read about, its just like in the US today. The government simply creates the money and spends it to pay their bills to get the money in circulation. So, your examples of soldier pay would be accurate. They mint coins, pay their soldiers with it, the soldiers buy food, clothes, etc. and thereby the coins enter circulation. It works well as long as the government does not flood the market with debased coins. That causes hyperinflation and is a good way to get you beheaded when the army revolts against you.
Exactly... coins were circulated as they were meant to be, which is why the trend of certain governments trying to claim ancient coins as "cultural heritage" is ridiculous. By that thinking, the United States should recall all obsolete coinage. Ridiculous.
They do still print catalogs, but certainly they're less useful than they were years ago since you can see the same online.
I hear you ma'am, especially when we have such documented outliers like the huge Roman gold stash found in Sweden. How the heck can Italians try to say its their "cultural heritage"? One, most people who live in Italy today are not descendants of the ancient Romans, but rather invaders from later periods. Second, even if Italians are Romans, they PAID this money in return for something 2000 years ago. Are they going to return the goods or services? If anything, coins are human kinds cultural heritage, and after seeing coins literally rotting in the basement of museums in Cairo or idiots blowing up historical sites around the world, I am fine with them residing in my collection protect and secure. All of those idiots who follow the liberal, "we stole these from the source countries and they deserve to have them back" argument should take note that some of the antiquities destroyed recently WERE in western museums, but were returned "to the source country". How did that work out? I am never for looting, but ancient civilization is human kinds history, not the current occupants of a certain place, and I am more comfortable having many pieces in the BM or the Smithsonian than I am only in the source countries where they can get dynamited at any moment.
Money enters the market in the same way as always. I am retired from, own stock in and receive a pension from a contractor that makes Patriot Missiles. Every time we sell one we get a bag of 2-3 million dollar coins of which my personal share is just enough to buy an item from the dollar menu at Taco Bell. I'm also retired from the Army. Every month they send me a bag of small copper coins which I use to pay taxes on what I earned elsewhere. Considering the number of people who sell junk to the government, new coins get out there through middlemen like Taco Bell and the county tax office which spend money paying their employees and buying ground beast and typewriter ribbons. I'm really surprized someone has not done a TV miniseries on the life and travels of a dollar bill. Today many of our 'coins' are electronic but the Romans did not understand the question "paper or plastic". A few of us have spent silver dollars or even silver dimes. My father spent gold coins (rarely!) and was just out of high school when they made that illegal. I know certain business tycoons who think they create money/wealth. I guarantee that if that were true, the picture on the bill would not be a dead President but a living businessman. Quiz: What Roman Emperor died because he failed to pay soldiers as promised? How many others?
I can't speak for the ancients, but at least in Medieval England (and likely elsewhere in Europe), the mint was a place where people could bring any silver to have it stamped as 'official.' Taxes didn't need to be paid in coin, and often sheriffs would bring weights of silver to the Exchequer which would be weighed and tested for purity. Silver coins were just a means of carrying silver, and would frequently be melted down to create whatever finery the nobility (or whoever) may like.
http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodian/hre207.html Herodians account differs considerably from some other sources. Truth gets lost now and then.
