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Message:: [QUOTE="Gao, post: 2160347, member: 19409"]The denarius was pretty defunct by the time of Diocletian's reform as well.  Units of account can be weird.  The sestertius was commonly used as the unit of account in the Roman Republic despite the coin rarely being minted in that period.  In addition, keep in mind that the larger denominations Constantius II introduced were probably set to be worth more than the old small coins they were supplementing/replacing.   In order to be 100 denarii, the centenionalis would only have to have been worth at most 4 of the old folles of Constantine (since we know those to have been worth at least 25).  In a highly inflationary period, that's not that big of a jump.  We've seen much worse in the 20th century. That said, this is the opinion of some guy on the internet who reads about this stuff for fun and is far from an expert, and we still don't have good documentation of this period.  It could have been a reference to a fraction like you suggest (though I need to double check if we have any information elsewhere of likely ratios of bronze to silver for this period), or it could be something completely different.  After all, there was some good scholarship of Diocletian's coinage that indicated the nummus was worth 5 denarii for his whole reign, but then someone found the monetary edict with that mentioned the value doubling to 25.[/QUOTE]