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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3746655, member: 93416&quot;]Thanks Valentinian. The first old coin in my family was a Victorinus radiate. After the war my Dad got a job in as a pay clerk in a limestone quarry. The week he was off on holiday, they dug up one of those many hoards from the period. He always regretted he only got one coin in the share out, (due to being away on the crucial day).</p><p><br /></p><p>About 50 years back when I started studying old coins I was faced with the question – shall I look at the Greek and Roman stuff, or should I look at all the rest? The Greek and Roman area looked pretty crowded to me, so I went for all the rest. With more spare time I on my hands in retirement, I am poking about amongst the stuff I missed, trying to catch up a bit. In that respect I am finding the comments by Doug and yourself enormously helpful, and am very grateful for them.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Have not got the book – but it sounds like he was philosophically naive if so. If anyone checks out my own book on weight standards, then they will find I use bold text only once - at the start of the account. I say, everything you read below is my <b>best guess. </b>In the end, I judge maths can give us something like “the truth”, but in science and history we are, at root, always dealing with best guesses.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The ‘5% fine’ argument put up by yourself and Doug looks a strong one to me. As you have spotted - my main complaint is not that it is wrong, but that it is that it is only part of the story.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This poses a problem for me. You seem to suggest that - what I think is the really interesting problem - is one especially for professional scholars seeking tenure. For me that is exactly what is wrong with modern times. Study should be about individuals trying to get at the truth according to their own conscience.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many times I find bad professional scholars shaping their findings to match what their peers want to hear. Even good professional scholars often enough avoid saying things their dean would not want to read. For me all that tenure stuff undermines what scholarship is about.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have a draft paper in the stocks which I plan to lodge on Academia.edu in a week or two, open for discussion. At root I will be trying to argue that there were already links between Stoicism, intellectual relativism and fiat currency by the mid second century in Rome. And I will be hoping that some readers might see that these forces are paralleled by the linked rise of “post-modern” ideology and fiat currency in the 20th century. I hope to get your criticism!</p><p><br /></p><p>Regards</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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