In 2017 a small hoard of byzantine coins were found outside Jerusalem: Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hoard...yzantine-site-tell-story-of-persian-invasion/ You can see "Con" and appearently "Theup". Coins of Constantinople and Theupolis (Antiochia) did indeed circulate outside their mint-city. BUT.. There are some weird denomination of Thessaloniki (16 nummion) and Alexandria (12 nummion): Justinian, 16 nummion, Thessaloniki: Heraclius, 12 nummion, Alexandria: Note they have weird denomination. For that reason I want to ask whether we have found hoards of these coins outside their mintcity? Did they circulate outside the city they were minted in? Or did they only circulate in their respective city they were minted in? Thanks
I would imagine they were localized products. I don't recall any Constantinople coins, for example, having any of those odd denominations, so I would think that they only circulated in those cities where an odd denomination was useful. They were probably legal tender in the main regions, but you'd probably get a weird look paying for a 20-nummus item with a 16 and a 4 coin, but probably would have been accepted with a death stare as the merchant would have trouble converting it to something more useful. My guess is that a region where tetrassarion-style coins (4-units each) were common, then a 16-unit would have been pretty useful. Same with the 12, a place with a history of usage of 3-unit coins (such as a trihemiobol) would benefit from a 12 unit. While in the main cities the decanummium (10) would have been quadrupled into a full nummus (40). Coins in groups of four seem to be pretty ubiquitous; even today, 4 25-cent pieces is a very common way to pay for a dollar item, for example. That's just my guess though. Edit - the more I think about it, the more this 4-unit idea makes sense. While the proper Roman numerals for "40" would be "XL," they sometimes put "XXXX" instead. This probably helped people remember that four 10-nummus coins equaled one 40-unit coin; four X's make more visual sense than XL. (Although, did they make any decanummia with an X instead of an I?)
It was emperor Phocas (602-610) that started with the 4 X's. Before that they always used "M" as denomination for 40 nummions. M=40 K=20 I=10 C=5 During and after Justinians time the Empire began to struck coins with the X's. 10 nummions: http://labarum.info/lbr/show.php?coin=5370 http://labarum.info/lbr/show.php?coin=5360 20 nummions: http://labarum.info/lbr/show.php?coin=2020 http://labarum.info/lbr/show.php?coin=4340 And here a weird 30 nummions: http://labarum.info/lbr/show.php?coin=4320
