Unusual 'Heavy Bronze' ??

Somewhere on CT at the moment is a discussion of the Licinius coins marked 12 1/2 in recognition of his devaluing of the basic coin. This period was pretty much a constant weight change either gradual or abrupt. Diocletian invented a new denomination that was big and impressive. Twenty years later it was ordinary AE3 and falling fast until the Fel Temp Reparatio coins started over with a decent looking big coin. They fell off and Julian did it again with the Bull. That fell off for a century and Anastasius gave us the big M. Do we see a pattern here? The little changes along the way may be something we don't want to take too seriously. When RIC lists a coin as ranging from 7g to 4g are we to read that there were big and small coins made this week or were last week's coins bigger and next week's smaller. It could be either. Does anyone including the book author grade scholars have all these answers. No. Perhaps someone now in kindergarten will take all the evidence and make some sense of it by the year 2100. I apologize for setting a high pressure timeline on this. It may take longer.

Before you look down your nose at Rome, take out your 1794, 1878, 1970 and 2015 US dollars or similar UK pound coins and tell me if you see anything familiar.

 

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