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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gao, post: 2160247, member: 19409&quot;]There were three bronze/billon denominations during the reign of Diocletian.&nbsp; We know the largest at one point doubled its value to 25 denarii (and there&#039;s debate about whether it was originally 5 before becoming the awkward 12 1/2).&nbsp; This larger denomination shrank physically soon after Diocletian retired, and the coin here is probably a descendant of that.&nbsp; I recall hearing that there were signs that the value might have increased again in areas under Constantine&#039;s control, but I&#039;d have to check on that, and it&#039;s probably not certain.&nbsp; We do however know that in the area Licinius controlled, he cut the value in half instead, presumably to increase the number of coins he received in taxes, and coins issued under him after that have 12 1/2 clearly written on them, a rare case where we can tell exactly what they were worth.&nbsp; During the reign of Constantius II, there was at one point a system with 3 bronze denominations (which don&#039;t divide nicely into the AE scale, which is a modern invention), and one of them was called the &quot;centenionalis,&quot; so it was presumably worth 100 of something (probably denarii).&nbsp; The lower two didn&#039;t last long, and the biggest (which are the common fallen horseman coins) shrank.&nbsp; After that, we see emperors sometimes introducing larger coins, but it&#039;s hard to tell how much they were worth, whether later smaller coins were shrunken versions of old denominations or new denominations, or how older coins interacted with these newer coins in the economy.</p><p><br /></p><p>tl;dr: It&#039;s complicated and largely unclear.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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