We have talked about prices in the ancient world here often. I found a web page that gives an English translation of an edict on prices by Diocletian - https://www.academia.edu/23644199/New_English_translation_of_the_Price_Edict_of_Diocletianus for CT members on LinkedIn, the listing above was in "the Ancient World" discussion group. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8452760
interesting! so according to this paper, this coin would have got me at least (still debated exactly how denarius communes translated into actual coins) 2.5 pints of wheat beer.
Thanks for posting @rrdenarius. I found this very interesting. But thinking about how denarius communes translates into coinage leaves me very confused.
I always akin the denarii communes to monies circulating near war zones or stress areas on the fringes of the empire. I would not want to circulate my precious metal coinage near the enemy, so I would circulate less precious metals (token coinage) near those areas so that the enemy could not hoard them away from my empire. However, once the Legion is transferred out of the area, or into less stress areas, etc, they could trade the denarii communes into AR denarii. I akin it to the US Hawaii Silver Certificates during WWII... see the Wiki article... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_overprint_note