How rich you'd be in Rome?

If you have a time machine, and get yourself transported back to Rome circa 3rd century AD, how long you could live off with the coins that you have now? and what activities you'd do?
Rules:
You can not use any coins minted after 300 AD.
You can only use Roman coins, not even provincials.

As for me, I can either live modestly for a month with basic bread and wine, all the while simply experiencing Rome, it's nook and cranny. Or live luxuriously for a week with feasts everyday, watching circus, and having 'fun' activities

 

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The best way to do this, I think, would be to take "junk silver" quarters and convince people that, at 6.25 g of decent silver, each was worth two denarii.

Not allowing that possibility, I could live a year off of the Antonine coins alone.

I'm not sure what the Roman populace would make of the patinas on the bronze and orichalcum coins, though. What would they think of a green sestertius?

 

I'd be fairly comfortable. BUT, I'd rather trade in the silvers and acquire some gold to bring back to our time. I'd use the coppers just on the basic needs while there.

 

Not very long. I'd probably get fed to the lions.

 

Fun topic, but if we had time machines we'd probably have the technology to make more coins or snag new ones.

But playing by the rules, I'm not sure; it depends on the time period. I'm sure they wouldn't have been happy about my ghastly claudius Aureus.

I think it would be a good idea to take along an Honorius SOlidus to Olybrius' time and happily give a good exchange rate for AE4s. And offer a good exchange rate to get some Olybrius Solidi.

 

Imagine using a coin of Vespasian during Nero’s reign

 

And we'd probably last about 2 seconds in the streets.

 

Enough to last for awhile, maybe 6 months

 

Not just that, but when we have to go a #2, not so sure how pleasant it would be to clean up afterwards when we are used to our modern ways.

 

The communal sponge!

 

Or broken pottery shards, ouch.

 

One might make a fantastic living as a magician/astrologer/etc. at the court. Get the coins from there!

 

I wouldn't last very long. Maybe a couple weeks.

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court as a child!

But would we all magically speak and understand colloquial Latin? I don't think English would do us much good.

 

If I don’t magically become fluent in Latin, I’d try my Spanish, throw in the few Latin words I know, and hope for the best lol.

 

I could survive for a short while in Trajan's time - 7 denarii, 1 dupondius, 2 quadrantes, 1 semis.
I think nobody would be very surprise seeing also a Nerva denarius, as and quadrans.

I would be more OK-ish at the end of the reign of Domitian, where nobody would be surprised about seeing Vespasian and Titus coins. 12 denarii, 1 sestertius, 2 asses.

But I am not sure if Romans would be very comfortable with cleaned or toned coins.

 

Probably about as rich as these characters:

 

LOL, I just watched that! Been awhile since it first came out.

Everybody oughtta have a maid!

 

After having sized down my quantity in order to achieve more quality: Not very long.

IF, however, I brought my useless sets of modern commemoratives (bought for bullion value) down from their crisis storage in the attic, a trip to the Lugdunum mint sometime between 37 and 41 AD could have made the journey back to the future worthwhile!

 

For a somewhat similar thread idea see:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/time-travel-barter-game.377447/

In Rob's thread, you go back to 1865 with one period dime which you can trade for other coins before coming back. It would be interesting to do a Roman version of this round trip.