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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 4169259, member: 72790&quot;]It must be obvious to all of us that we seem to be in danger of a serious epidemic. World markets are reacting adversely to news of an incipient plague and the accompanying economic, not to say human damage that may arise. Most of us on this site know, of course, that world wide epidemics, pandemics, are not a new phenomenon. The Ancient World of Classical Greece and Rome suffered through several which are well documented by both contemporary writings and recent DNA evidence from skeletal remains. The question I would like to raise is, is it possible to see the havoc caused by such pandemics in the coinage of the periods involved.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, let&#039;s take a look at what we know about four ancient epidemics or plagues( loimos to the Greeks, pestilentia or pestis to Latin speakers). First a bit about that of the Plague of Athens, well known to readers of Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War. The plague broke out, or at least most manifested itself, in the second year of the war with Sparta, 430 BC. With much of the population confined within the walls of war time Athens, whatever the illness was, it spread quickly, killing off a large enough percentage of the population (including their leader, Pericles) to bring about social dislocation as well as economic retrenchment and a weakening of their armed forces. The second of these great ancient plagues was the Antonine Plague which hit Rome during the reign of Marcus Aurelius in 165 AD. Thought there is no good time for an epidemic to hit the planet, this already was a hard time for Rome as the Empire was under attack from Germanic barbarians and the Parthians and the Roman Army was already under great stress handling them. Lucius Verus was probably a victim of this illness. The great medico, Galen, was able to give us a physician&#039;s impression of the illness, that is, until he left the city of Rome for a more remote location to wait it out. The third great epidemic was the Cyprian Plague, named for the Christian Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, in 250 AD. The last thing the Roman World needed in 250 AD was another calamity with internecine civil war and more barbarians driving Rome to the edge. Claudius Gothicus is believed to have been killed by Cyprian&#039;s Plague, a great loss as he was a most capable emperor at a time when Rome most needed one. Lastly was the Plague of Justinian breaking out in 541 AD and well attested and documented by court historian, Procopius. His descriptions of the unburied dead being stuffed into towers along the walls still brings the creeps to modern readers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Naturally we all want to know just exactly what these epidemics were caused by, that is what were these diseases that killed, on average, 25-35 % of the populations when they hit. We cannot be sure, but the descriptions of the symptoms have suggested typhus, small pox, measles (which can be deadly to adults as soldiers in the American Civil War would discover), dysentery, bubonic plagues,even Ebola. Whatever these illnesses were, they caused terrible suffering and weakened the Classical world to the point where other dangers which they could have shrugged off in good times now became lethal destroyers of civilized life.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I have been wondering is, can we, as numismatists, see evidence of these plagues in the coinage of the period. Perhaps these diseases affected the fabric of the coinage. There is evidence that the denarius saw a significant reduction in the fineness of silver in the mid 160&#039;s AD as the Antonine Plague spread about the empire. Some collectors know that in the latter stages of the Peloponnesian War Athens issued fourees, plated coins, to make up for a lack of silver but, considering how frequently their tetradrachmas are banker marked, or just chiseled to check for purity of silver, maybe the practice was employed during the plague years early in the war. The great debasement of Roman silver was probably first detectable to the eye about 250 AD and as Cyprian&#039;s Plague continued the bottom dropped out of the silver content of the coinage. In Byzantine coinage the damage from Justinian&#039;s Plague may be evident in their bronze coinage. Anastasias had recently restored the integrity of the Eastern Roman Empire&#039;s bronze coinage with large, heavy and well struck folles. Justinian continued that fine coinage until the latter part of his reign, post plague, and following his death, the follis became a much smaller, lighter coin with a noticeable decline in artistry.</p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps readers of this site could check their own coins for other tell tale clues to these epidemics affecting the coinage. Maybe a noticeable increase in coinage dedicated to Hygeia, Salus, Apollo, Aesculapius during those years. I admit I don&#039;t know how much the coinage was affected, if at all, by these periodic plagues just as I don&#039;t know how the current epidemic might affect the social and economic fabric of our lives in the near future, but I think it more than just a curiosity that they were. Below are some images of some ancient coins from those four great plagues of Antiquity, an Athenian tetradrachma, a dupondius of Marcus Aurelius, an Antioch tetradrachma of Trajan Decius and a follis of Justinian.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074183[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1074184[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1074185[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1074186[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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