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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Terence Cheesman, post: 3510055, member: 86498&quot;]I found this graph about a year ago It does show something of the debasement of the Roman silver coins. The problem that we have is that our understanding of how the soldiers would have reacted to this debasement is very limited because it complicated by the limited amount of information we have on how these coins were used. This may seem like a silly comment but I am not even sure if we know how often the army got paid during the year, and this would have a direct bearing on the velocity of coin circulation within those regions dominated by the army as well as how fast the coinage would spread into the larger society. I am reminded of the situation that existed in most rural parts of the country. Farmers really only get paid once a year, when they sell their crops. For the rest of the year they would run up a tab with the local merchants and when paid would then pay them off. So for much of the year very little actual money would be circulating in these regions. It may be that the soldiers really did not get to see much of their money for long.</p><p>I should note that despite the debasement the coins up to the sole reign of Gallienus look like silver coins. This may have been good enough.Again we have very little information.[ATTACH=full]930792[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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