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Message:: [QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 5010415, member: 72790"]I don't think there is any question that he debased the currency in order to make more of it. What I think surprising is that there does not seem to have been any kind of raging inflation that followed. Sure, following Gresham's law (bad money drives out good) his earlier denarii were finding their way into hoards and melting pots but the older coins of the Republic and those of Augustus, which were on the almost pure silver standard, stayed in circulation because they had been so worn by circulation that they now matched the reduced weight and fineness of Nero. And although the aureus was also reduced in weight (but not in fineness) the rate of exchange remained 25 denarii to one aureus. For the average man-in-the streets, who probably handled a lot more brass and bronze on a day to day basis it may not have mattered. I think the coin supply of denarii remained plentiful enough for the economy, the aureus for which the new denarii (and older silver) could be exchanged and a plentiful supply of brass insulated the the economy from what we would think would cause some dislocation. It may be that the average Roman already saw the silver denarii as a subsidiary, token coinage whose value came from its issuing authority  and convertibility to a gold coin of a  new, lesser weight but continued fineness, which underwrote the denarius.[/QUOTE]