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Did normal middle class people have gold coins in Ancient times?
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<p>[QUOTE="Gam3rBlake, post: 7322256, member: 115909"]Yeah but those are the people we are talking about.</p><p><br /></p><p>Not the people who were dirt poor and lived hand to mouth.</p><p><br /></p><p>But more like Roman soldiers, government officials and people like that who likely were able to afford to save a small amount every year.</p><p><br /></p><p>People who weren’t the majority (the poor) or the minority (the filthy rich) but rather people in between. People who didn’t need to spend every denarius they got just to survive.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even if a man only saved 1 denarii per month (a day’s wages so not unrealistic) he would end up saving 12 denarii per year.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well over 10 years that’s 120 denarii or a little bit less than 5 gold aureii.</p><p><br /></p><p>He could keep say 20 denarii for small transactions and keep the rest of his life savings in the form of 4 gold aureii which would be easier to hide or carry to keep safe whereas a bag full of 120 silver denarii would be difficult to keep on one’s person for a long period of time such as when traveling along the Roman roads.</p><p><br /></p><p>Take a look at the Greek historian Herodotus. He travelled all over the place from Persia to Asia and instead of carrying thousands of denarii with him to pay expenses it seems like it would make more sense to keep a single bag of gold Greek staters (they had a little more gold than a Roman aureus) and use those. Then he would be given change (since most purchases wouldn’t be worth an entire gold stater) which he could spend on his future transactions.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Gam3rBlake, post: 7322256, member: 115909"]Yeah but those are the people we are talking about. Not the people who were dirt poor and lived hand to mouth. But more like Roman soldiers, government officials and people like that who likely were able to afford to save a small amount every year. People who weren’t the majority (the poor) or the minority (the filthy rich) but rather people in between. People who didn’t need to spend every denarius they got just to survive. Even if a man only saved 1 denarii per month (a day’s wages so not unrealistic) he would end up saving 12 denarii per year. Well over 10 years that’s 120 denarii or a little bit less than 5 gold aureii. He could keep say 20 denarii for small transactions and keep the rest of his life savings in the form of 4 gold aureii which would be easier to hide or carry to keep safe whereas a bag full of 120 silver denarii would be difficult to keep on one’s person for a long period of time such as when traveling along the Roman roads. Take a look at the Greek historian Herodotus. He travelled all over the place from Persia to Asia and instead of carrying thousands of denarii with him to pay expenses it seems like it would make more sense to keep a single bag of gold Greek staters (they had a little more gold than a Roman aureus) and use those. Then he would be given change (since most purchases wouldn’t be worth an entire gold stater) which he could spend on his future transactions.[/QUOTE]
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