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Why Few Roman Silver Coins Greater Than the Denarius?
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<p>[QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 4295877, member: 72790"]A few days ago one of our members put up an image of a very early and rare Roman silver didrachma of the early to mid Third Century BC in connection with his posting. This got me to thinking. The Greeks issued many kinds of didrachmas or staters of that weight, ca. seven grams or so, and quite frequently silver tetradrachmas as well. It seems to me that the Romans could issue that denomination, at least for the Greek cities of Magna Graecia but even if the later quadrigatus is considered a didrachma of sorts, most of the silver which the Romans issued in the later Republic and early Empire was of the denomination of the denarius. Rome did not seem much interested in such a larger silver denomination for use, at least in the Latin West. Yes, in the Greek East the Romans had no problem with mints issuing multiple drachmai coinage but for some odd reason (to me anyway) the huge gap (25 to 1) between the gold aureus (Julius Caesar to Caracalla) and the silver denarius did not seem to bother them. When a kind of double denarius, what we call the antoninianus, was issued in the Third century AD it still left a big gap between the aureus and that coin and if by that time the aureus was circulating simply as bullion there was no fixed exchange rate between the two.</p><p><br /></p><p>My question to members is, what do you think may account for Rome, again at least in the Latin West, seemingly not being interested or concerned with minting larger silver coins which might have reduced the large gap between the denarius and aureus? Thanks.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 4295877, member: 72790"]A few days ago one of our members put up an image of a very early and rare Roman silver didrachma of the early to mid Third Century BC in connection with his posting. This got me to thinking. The Greeks issued many kinds of didrachmas or staters of that weight, ca. seven grams or so, and quite frequently silver tetradrachmas as well. It seems to me that the Romans could issue that denomination, at least for the Greek cities of Magna Graecia but even if the later quadrigatus is considered a didrachma of sorts, most of the silver which the Romans issued in the later Republic and early Empire was of the denomination of the denarius. Rome did not seem much interested in such a larger silver denomination for use, at least in the Latin West. Yes, in the Greek East the Romans had no problem with mints issuing multiple drachmai coinage but for some odd reason (to me anyway) the huge gap (25 to 1) between the gold aureus (Julius Caesar to Caracalla) and the silver denarius did not seem to bother them. When a kind of double denarius, what we call the antoninianus, was issued in the Third century AD it still left a big gap between the aureus and that coin and if by that time the aureus was circulating simply as bullion there was no fixed exchange rate between the two. My question to members is, what do you think may account for Rome, again at least in the Latin West, seemingly not being interested or concerned with minting larger silver coins which might have reduced the large gap between the denarius and aureus? Thanks.[/QUOTE]
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