Halved Sestertius = 1 Dupondius ?

Maybe one of the ancient coin experts can help with this one. One of the dealers at yesterdays show gave my son this coin - (well half of it). That was a really nice gesture by the dealer! and now we want to know more about it.

I am not familiar with the practice of halving coinage in Roman times, Was it very widespread? would 1/3 of a sestertius then equal an As?

Thanks for any information,

Eduard

 

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well, the coin is not a Dupondius but a Sestertius broken in half. A Serstertius is supposed to be worth 2 1/2 Asses. A Sestertius is made of Orichalcum (brass) which was considered to be worth twice that of bronze. A Dupondius (which this is not) was a half Sestertius coin made of Brass and worth about 2 Asses.

At the time of Commodus, the Dupondius would have had a portrait of the emperor in a radiate crown. This appears to be simply a Sestertius that has been broken in half for whatever reason. Coins can break on their own or could be broken in half to half its value...all the same I am not sure if I would call it a Dupondius simply because by being broken in half, it is half the value of a Sestertius which is the value of a Dupondius. I would just call it, like you said in the title, a halved Sestertius.

If you break a 50 cent peice in half, would you call that half a Quarter?

 

Not sure I agree completely with Drusus.

At the begining, yes, a sestertius would be worth 2.5 asses, but after a while (don't remember when exactly) the value increased to 4 asses.
In the same time, to turn the lack of "pocket change" in some places of the Empire (see the south of France and half Nemausus dupondii) coins have been cut in halves and every single half was worth half the value of the initial coin.

Q

 

After some searching i was able to find these two examples of halved coinage: a sestertius, and a dupondius. The dupondius originates, as Cucumbor mentions, from the south of France.

http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=102233&AucID=110&Lot=419

http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=165099&AucID=203&Lot=148


This implies that the practice of halving coinage to provide smaller denominations did indeed exist in antiquity.

Both of these predate our example by at least 1 1/2 centuries, so this does not also mean that my sons' halved Commodus sestertius also served this purpose. But it is an intriguing possibility.

Regards,

Eduard

 

I might not have been completely clear. I did not say people did not break a sestertius in half to get half the value in practice, in my original post I said:

"This appears to be simply a Sestertius that has been broken in half for whatever reason. Coins can break on their own or could be broken in half to half its value..."

I am sure it probably happened...I am saying that the halved sestertius, IMO, would not be a dupondius as that is the name of a specific coin type with a specific denomination...I was saying that a sestertius broken in half would be a halved sestertius and although value changed through time, old denominations were discarded and new ones created or values changes and coins types with the same name wildly differ in the time line according to standards that change (for example a Sestertius during the republic was a small silver coin and did not become the big brass coins we love so much until the time of Augustus), a dupondius was a specific coin worth half a sestertius.

I would call a coin like this a halved sestertius and NOT a dupondius like it is apparently called on the label. Regardless of what the coin was worth in asses, the dupondius was a coin that was worth half a sestertius, it was a specific coin with a specific worth. Much like a half dollar coin would be to a dollar coin.

you will notic that in the link above...the seller calls the halved sestertius: Half of sestertius

So my point was simply that a sestertius cut in half is not a dupondius...IMO

 

I agree.


Who even knows when it was cut. Some of these coins were used in some areas as money for hundreds of years. If only these coins could talk.

 

I might not have been completely understanding either :high5:

I agree also, now that I understand correctly

Q

 

we might not buy them is they could, lol. I'm sure alot have pretty awful tales to tell.

 

I always found the "making change" solution difficult to swallow. If this were true, we would presumably find many, many more cut sestertii, dupondii, et al. Undoubtedly, the dupondii of Nemausus and Viennensis, commonly found cut, were cut for change. Or, and this is entirely "ex rectum", maybe only dumb old country bumpkins cut their coins, and the sleek city folk used half denominations.

 

I don't have the slightest idea what any of you guys are talking about, but it's still cool!

I would collect ancient coins...really, I would...but I just can't bring myself to start. I have spent 25 years in U.S. coins from 1793 to date, and I still am not even close to understanding everything. I couldn't imagine changing my 200-year time frame into 4,000 years or more.

I really enjoy reading your threads, though.

 

Here is another one: 1/3 cut denarius

Borgovan, i am glad you enjoy ancient coins. Actually, for relatively little money (compared to U.S cloins for sure!) you can obtain representative samples of coins minted 1800 years ago. I collect Roman because i find their history fascinating, and also because i know they wandered about the woods right behind my house!

Guys, here is another example of cut (deliberately or not) coinage. This one is approx. 1/3 of a denarius (of Vespasian) which i found many years ago. It was found it together with 2 other whole denarii, so, whoever lost it probably intended to spend it along with the whole ones. I find this really interesting since as far as i recall, i have seen few cut denarii offered.

Regards,

Eduard

 

This one might be just broken instead of cut

Q

 

All this is, of course, just supposition but I feel this could very well be the case. If you were living in a thriving metropolis...one would probably have little need to cut coins as a larger city or town (especially one with a mint and a thriving market) would probably have enough coinage while those in rural areas...if they even used coins at all...might find the need to cut a coin to half its value.

I have been reading a great comprehensive book called 'The later Roman Empire' (not sure of the author) which presents a rather in depth study of day to day life in the later empire (what we know, what we think we can ascertain) and it often compares it to how things were in the earlier empire. This book put forth that in the Roman Empire, money was mainly used by those in areas where there were markets and actual jobs in which a person might get paid for their work...this book puts forth the idea that a large portion of the rest of the empire did not even use money...they traded services for good, goods for other goods, etc...

Most people in the later empire (and indeed in the earlier empire) were what we might consider something like a serf...they worked the land of a land lord and were rewarded with what they needed to survive and little money changed hands. Even the military was paid, in a large part, with a mixture of goods and money.

In the later empire, there were even laws put into place that forbid people from moving...in other words...they did not even have the freedom of movement if you were a part of a specific so-called free working class (they had a name for it, cant remember what it was). If they did not like their lot in life, they could not go and look for another arrangement. I believe it might have been under Diocletian and later emperors like Valentinian who even passed laws that, in essence, penalized a land owner for giving refuge and opportunity to another mans workers who left to find a better lot. I believe it was under Diocletian that laws were passed that even stated that a person could NOT change his profession.

If your father was a baker...then you are a baker...and you could not, if you wished, become a wine merchant...people were locked into those jobs. One reason for this was to ensure these jobs always had workers. These came along with many other laws such as laws that forbid local leaders from leaving those less glamorous and more burdensome local leadership roles (where the real work and burdens were) for imperial positions (they all wanted imperial positions as they came with far less responsibility). If you were a local leader, you have to collect tribute, if your tribute did not meet the requirements, you have to pay the rest with your own money....things like this made local leadership roles less appealing (this was paid with gold, not money). Now of course the empire was large and it was never able to adequately enforce laws just like it was never able to adequately tax, keep a stable economy and was always quite inefficient...so there were always exceptions.

I am rambling but what I was trying to say was that common people in the empire, especially the later empire, were highly restricted in their freedoms. During much of the empire money would have been used by less people than it would be today. It became even less after the silver currency fell from use and the cheap bronze coins flooded the economy. These coins propped up sections of working class in urban areas but those few at the top still used Gold and silver and goods in transactions while the much larger lower rural classes seldom used money at all. This left the Urban lower class to use the more common copper bronze coins...and while cities grew much larger (and required a lot of coins), that was still a smaller percentage of the whole.

The main point would be that rural economies, according to this book, were not based on money...as the rich used gold and silver, and the poor were of the slave class or the lower rural class which were possibily not paid in the traditional sense.

So few of the common rural classes would be using a sestertius let alone half of one....but I am sure the extremely complex and ever changing economy of the Roman empire saw some rural people receiving and using money...and certainly we know that in the middle ages and beyond...even in early America where we cut silver Spanish coins into QUARTERS and EIGHTS (those who used money).... people cut coins to get lower values...it seems probably to me that there were people doing this during the time of the Roman Empire as well....but what we dont know about life back then far eclipses what we do know.

 

Thank you Drusus, that is an very interesting recount of what rural life in the empire was like.

Concerning the flow of money in the Roman Empire, it must be remembered is that the major economic force in the far reaches of the empire, including Germania Inferior und Superior, was provided by the legions. Each legionaire earned (from memory) something like 300-400 denari per annum (more in the late empire). If you then consider that each legion
counted some 4000+ soldiers, one can get some idea of the amount of money which circulated. This is certainly verified by the number of hoards and casual finds of roman coins which have been made in this area of Germany alone. Same goes for Britain.

2000 years ago, like today, money was were the military were located. This is the reason why Civitas or civilian settlements, and all manner of trades and commerce to support the needs of the legions flourished just beyond the gates of major Roman forts along the German Limes. The legionaires had money, and this helped support the local population and tradesmen, and even beyond the borders of the Roman empire.

(Note that this still does not support the case for purposely cut coinage, that is only an interesting possibility, but it is not implausible).

regards,

Eduard

 

Yes, Roman soldiers received a base pay of roughly 200 to 500 Denarii a year depending on the time period and rank (sometimes much more, centurions often were paid in the thousands of denarii but I was concerned more with the base roman soldiers)...deducted from this would be clothes, food and many other things provided to them thus their actual pay was far smaller than this...in fact if I am not mistaken, a relatively recent discovery in Britain showed that a roman legionary soldier, when all was said and done, might have been left with something like 20 denarii (spending money) give or take (I dont recall the exact amount but it was rather small but this does not include bonus and tributes)....the find consisted of records kept at an outpost in Roman Britain which not only included official records but personal letters written on strips of wood. There were actual letter from home found where family had sent care packages as well as official records for pay.

This does not include donatives (payments in gold and silver, often silver ingots which have been found, on the Emperors accession and every fifth year) which were often rather large and a rather large sum given once they retire (full service was something like 15-25 years depending on the time period) which included land grants, the right to marry, a pension, citizenship, etc.., some received part of the spoils, bonuses, gold and silver gifts. It was a hard life but if it were between slaving away on your masters land or traveling the world and getting a decent pay, land, etc...I can see why people joined up.

The LATER empire is different...for one...the denarius was no longer in use and soldiers were not stupid...they WOULD receive part of their pay in large sums of debased copper coinage called a Stipendium (annual salary) or in silver ingots....the amount of which highly fluctuated given the time frame. They also received an Annonae which consisted of goods such as salt, oil, meat, wine, etc...rank accorded how much you got....these came right from land owners and was made up of what they could get from them...it could be anything of value...they also receiving land grants, tributes, and rights and the like once they retired.

It all mattered when and where and often these things changed with a new ruler who had a new plan on how to make this befuddled system work better. Though the military was far better and more efficiently run that the civil government.

So without doubt the army was big in dispersing money throughout the far flung empire and as you say...where they went also went legions of support personal and merchants...many modern towns and cities started off as roman military bases.

Sorry about the rambling posts, you might notice this is a passion of mine

 

Drusus - I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. I think coins were much more available in the ancient world than we've been led to believe.

I've spent the past six or so months researching the Roman economy, I have some good articles, if you're interested. PM me for those. In general, most of the scholars who write on the ancient economy are either not well versed with or completely ignorant of the numismatic evidence. Moses Finley, whose ideas formed the core of our thinking on this topic for nearly twenty years, went so far as to say that coins were strictly, "a political phenomenon" and were rarely used for commerce!

For a very good examination of the topic, I HIGHLY recommend "Coinage in the Roman Economy" by Kenneth Harl.

 

This is an excellent discussion. I am not quite the expert (by a long shot) that you guys are. But my own experience tells me that silver, and certainly copper coins circulated widely in this part of the roman empire! Gold on the other hand, specially imperial gold, now that was rare!

 

I own it and have read it, and I thought it was a great read but my wife says I read extremely boring books I am not saying coinage wasn't available and used extensively in the roman world, I am saying that I still believe that certain sections of the Roman world were NOT monetized...this would be based less on where you lived (although I DO think rural was far less monetized than urban) but on status and how much the area was market based. I would also like to recommend a book that looks at (among other things) the LATER Roman economy...which seemed to me to be quite different than the earlier empire...the book is called 'The Later Roman Empire' by Averil Cameron

This book is a good read, a little less dry, but still rather extensive. It relies heavily on the sparse sources to lay out as clear a picture as I have yet read of the economy, society, and government of the later Roman Empire...Starting in earnest with Diocletian's sweeping social and economic reorganization and policy changes and the further debasement of the money which caused...among other things...hording and far less confidence in the monetary system. It also clearly illustrates that the Roman world operated on 2 (and maybe even 3) economies. One for the very wealthy, and one for the rest of the population and possibly one for the poorest that was less monetized. From records and surviving last wills we know there were, still at this time, people so wealthy that they owned uninterrupted estates that stretched far across the empire and we know they had slaves who were unpaid and workers who were paid in goods....as well as other skilled labor that who were probably paid...either in money or a mixture of money and goods...there is little doubt that by the Later Roman Empire, the Annonae was probably becoming more valuable to the soldier than the Stipendii.

From this book I was compelled to read other source material including the surviving works of Julian II. It gives what I feel to be a fair presentation of surviving source material and the best picture of what life might have been like for all classes, society and the economy. The best thing about this book IMO is the source material that it drove me to read.

It isnt very relevant to this conversation but it introduced me one of the most interesting views into a Roman Emperors mind, IMO, besides possibly 'Meditations' (which I personally found far less interesting). That would be Julian's surviving works...among others

"The Caesars"
http://www.attalus.org/translate/caesars.html

and the even more Interesting: "Misopogon" (The Beard Hater)
http://www.attalus.org/translate/misopogon.html

The later being Julian's satirical and IMO very bitter answer to the people of Antioch who had publicly mocked him.

Oh...and if you think Constantine should be a figure of reverence because of his involvement with Christianity...this book is not for you as it treats him like any other emperor and its not with reverence...lets not forget the man killed his own son and wife.

I am not sure if we might disagree quite as much as you think as I DO think money was widely used in the Roman Empire. I still DO believe that there were sections of society (especially in the later empire) who operated on a system that was not based on money (or far less so than others)

 

@borgovan, start here:

http://augustuscoins.com/ed/numis/

Surely you don't know anywhere near all about US coins, but what you don't know is all details which are mostly of interest because
1) they affect value, or
2) they are details invented to make something (slightly) interesting because interest in the main type has been exhausted long ago (e.g. die varieties, doubled dies, full steps). In a thread like this one:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/fo...cient-edition-post-‘em-if-you-got-‘em.300099/
you can see hundreds (really) of types from themes that are actually interesting.

Why spend the next decade worrying that you might pay MS65 prices for a coin that is really only MS64? Grade may be everything in US coins, but it is not in ancient coins. You can actually have fun learning about interesting coin types, not merely (barely) interesting coin details.

Join us over on the dark side!

 

This revived thread is now exactly 10 years old....