I've had this question for a while, but was too afraid to share it. How do we know the original names for Roman coin denominations and how much they were worth, like was there a book or document that listed all them and what they were used for. How a denarius could buy a slave and a quadrans could buy a loaf of bread. Stuff like that. Im open to any conversation of the type. I mean, I wouldn't consider myself an amateur, so don't treat me like one, I understand numismatics and big ideas won't phase me.
If you want a book, read Harl: https://www.amazon.com/Coinage-Economy-Ancient-Society-History/dp/0801852919 We have to realize that some questions do not have the neat answers you might want. The names of denominations is a subject with mixed results. Some we know, some have been invented by collectors/scholars because we need to call them something and do not have the truth. Not everything was included in what texts survived for us to read. We have a few names but not every scholar agrees on what coin was meant by that word. I am concerned that we not get into arguments between those who can prove the coin is a quarter and those who are sure it is 25 cents or two bits. Some names we have mean little more than "coin". After you read Harl, you will still have questions but you should better understand why it is OK to admit that we don't have all the answers.
If what you mean is, "What did the people call the coins in the marketplace", we don't know. Bankers and money changers had to be precise with the terms for obvious reasons, but even here there must have been anomalies, especially in handling something like Roman provincials. In some cases calculations would have been done by weight and it did not matter what the coin was called, either locally or by official decree. In a sophisticated market place of a major urban center there must have been local names that shoppers and shopkeepers used for well known currency just as we do. In the shopkeeper's ledger he might have called a coin a denarius or a sestertius or a drachma but when bargaining he might have used a more regional or colloquial name, the ones we don't know. Think of us barraging at a garage sale or flea market. "I'll give you two bucks for that item". For the customer and seller it's two bucks. For the bank it's two dollars. In ancient times that market coinage might have been two silver pieces with everybody understanding just what a silver piece was. Again, two coppers might be well understood as what the mint named assess or assaria. When in the later Roman Empire barbarians demanded gold pieces, everybody knew what was meant, solidi. In the early empire, it would have been aurei (which just means gold pieces, anyway). Like many others I, too, wonder what actually transpired in the market place with respect to transactions but this is not the sort of thing Xenophon or Aristotle, Cicero or Vergil wrote about.
There are some good responses already on how we know the denominations of ancient coins. Our knowledge of ancient purchasing value is similarly spotty, mostly based on scattered references in surviving texts that mention in passing how much something costs. In the opening chapter of his excellent book Biblical Coins and their Values, Hendin lists some surviving prices from 1st and 2nd century AD Judaea. (Example: "Josephus reported that one amphora of olive oil from the Galilee cost one Tyrian drachma, the equivalent of one denarius.") One special document that I know of is Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices, issued in 301 AD by the Roman emperor Diocletian in an attempt to prop up the weak Roman economy. It lists maximum prices that could be charged for various goods and services, in terms of denarii. (Keep in mind that by this point the denarius had degraded to basically a bronze coin with a thin silver wash.) Here's a good page on the Edict: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Edict of Diocletian Edict on Prices
A few are known but mostly not. The name "antoninianus" is speculative. Later authors refer to the "nummus" which may or may not have been the name of the "Follis" at that time. Sestertius was a real name, referred to several times in the sources. Supposedly Didius Julianus, when he won the auction for the throne, offered 25,000 sesterces per soldier, which when one thinks about it is an incredible sum.
One further thought. The actual word, "denarius" must actually have been in common usage everywhere from counting house to market place when we consider how many country's coins, or simply the word for money, survived the fall of the Roman Empire, Denier, Denaro, Dineiro, Dinar. Probably a few other variations of denarius out there, all showing that the word denarius must have been known and employed in common parlance.
Curiously, today some countries use a variation on Denarius as the official money name (Macedonian Denar) while Spanish, for example, uses Dinero as a general term for money
The term apparently even resonated in the Medieval Islamic world though there the dinar was a gold coin. Since the Roman aureus had as its mint name, denarius aureus, the golden denarius, I guess that counts, too. I think their silver coin, the Dirhem, might have come from drachma. My guess on that one.
The name of the gold dinar seems to reference the denarius aureus, but its weight instead seems to deliberately repudiate Roman standards, and revert to the Attic drachm. The silver dirhem is a new denomination in itself, but the weight standard it references seems to be the 500g mina of very ancient Mesopotamia. I have an article coming rather soon I hope on this matter. The sterling penny is exactly half of the Canonical dirhem (2.93g vs 1.46g) and that seems to be because both sought to reference the weight standard of Moses – in Leviticus. The bones of the explanation are already published here: https://www.academia.edu/6882687/Coin_Weight_and_Historical_Metrology For those who like the story in pictures see page 139 Rob T
Hi, Roman numismatics gallery has a list of denominations, here is the site; www.romancoins.info/Content.html Hope it helps
I think you will find the smaller the denomination the harder it is to get answers on value and some cases name. I deal with a coin first issued in 1092 Tetarteron, it was named in literature by a crusader passing through. In other documents it is simple called an Obol, as for its purchasing power it was discovered from translated letters between a princess and her tutor. In the numismatic world the one name ( tetarteron) covers 3 to 5 denominations during that time period. People did not right receipts for small change, even now most important documents deal with large purchases and not the small ones. Here is a paper that deals with Eastern Roman ( Byzantine ) purchases from the 7th to 15th century. https://www.academia.edu/1431390/Pr....C._2002_ISBN_0-88402-288-9_vol._2_p._799-878 I know not quite what you were looking for but it gives you an idea for later currency.
I would much welcome comment from others, but as I understand it the (Nero+) denarius disappeared as a coin in the 3rd century, and by the early fourth century it was already turning into a “book value” at 1/100th of its original intrinsic value, used in calculation - and it went into even steeper decline (as a book value) later in the century as inflation ramped up. The coins that survived the empire were really the gold solidus and its fraction, often themselves in debased form in the West. A correct understanding however of the weight of the (Nero+) denarius as part of Roman weight system did survive the end of empire, in the works of Favius and Isidore and others. Medieval Rome itself apparently correctly understood this denarius weight, but got the story wrong on the libra, making it 100 denarii thus c. 340g. Charlemagne seems to have better sources than Rome, Favius and Isidore. His reformed penny of c. 794 weighed c. 1.7g thus was deliberately and exactly fixed at ½ the (Nero+) denarius. I follow Grierson in believing he had a bullion pound that was exactly an attic mina of c. 437g. That was made into (a binary) 256 pennies, which would weigh the same as 128 denarii. Since the Roman libra was apparently 12/16 times the Attic mina, this gives 96 denarii to the libra, which was surely correct. This would imply Charlemagne had better sources than the Latin writers Favius and Isidore. My guess is he got his correct understanding from Haroon al Rashid. Getting (at last!) to the names. I think the names denier, denaro etc did not come directly from the Roman coins. They came largely from attempts to explain the Bible to lay people around the 8th or 9th century AD. As such they made more sense in Carolingian lands (where the penny was a kind of half denarius). The “d” sign in England makes less sense - as the sterling penny seems to have very little to do with the denarius. I suspect that came about almost exclusively in connection with early medieval decisions taken in Biblical translation. Thoughts anyone? Rob T
