The reform of Aurelian - article ; n°7 ; vol.6, pg 225-235

R.A.G.Carson

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Revue numismatique - Année 1965 - Volume 6 - Numéro 7 - Pages 225-235
11 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: REVUE_NUMISMATIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1965
• Nombre de lectures: 7
• Langue: English

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R. A. G. Carson
The reform of Aurelian
In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 7, année 1965 pp. 225-235.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Carson R. A. G. The reform of Aurelian. In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 7, année 1965 pp. 225-235.
doi : 10.3406/numi.1965.932
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/numi_0484-8942_1965_num_6_7_932R. A. G. CARSON
THE REFORM OF AURELIAN
The examination of a large hoard of antoniniani of the later
third century found at Gloucester1 in 1960 has prompted the reconsi
deration of Aurelian's monetary reform. The hoard of over
15,000 coins is unique in the records of hoards of this period in
Roman Britain; for such hoards normally contain a great mass
of antoniniani of the Gallic emperors and only a handful of anto
niniani of the kind created by Aurelian's reform and issued by
subsequent emperors, but in the case of the Gloucester hoard the
Gallic emperors were represented by a single coin of Victorinus,
while the bulk of the hoard consisted of reform antoniniani.
The reign of Aurelian alone was represented by 2,739 coins, a
useful body of material for the study of the problems of the mint
attributions of this coinage, as well as of the problem of what was
effected by Aurelian's reform and the probable date of this measure.
The discussion of what was involved in Aurelian's reform requires
a consideration of this measure in the wider setting of the history
of the silver and pseudo-silver coinage in the third century, together
with an examination of monetary changes which preceded it and,
to a certain extent, of reforms still later in the third century. The
complex causes of the inflation of the Roman imperial coinage
have been the subject of a number of studies2 and need not detain
us here, but for our purpose it is necessary to trace the various
stages of this inflation and the steps which were taken in an endea
vour to halt inflation.
In an inflationary situation when the supply of bullion cannot be
expanded there are two obvious methods of increasing the supply
1. This hoard is still being studied but it is hoped to publish an account shortly.
2. E.g. M. Rostovtzeff, The social and economic history of Rome; Tenney Frank,
An econonomic survey of Ancient Rome in EHR 1952, pp. 293 ft*. 226 R. A. G. CARSON
of money, namely the lowering of the weight and the fineness of
the standard coin, in this case, the silver denarius1. The early
imperial denarius of the Augustan coinage system had a weight
of 3.9 gm. and the silver fineness was of the order of 95%, but the
first two centuries of empire saw successive diminutions of both
the weight and fineness of this coin. Nero, by his reform of
A. D. 64, reduced the weight to 3.41 gm. and the fineness to 90%
and after the recall of earlier denarii by Trajan in A. D. 107 the
new issues show a weight of 3.21 gm. and a fineness of only 80%.
These standards were more or less maintained until the reign of
Marcus Aurelius whose denarii, though still approximating to the
weight standard of 3.21 gm., show a fall in fineness to about 70%.
The effect on prices of this continuing fall in the standard of
the denarius is difficult to assess, because of the lack of any consis
tent body of economic information, for it is only for Egypt, which
was in any case something of a special area, that papyri provide
us with an insight into economic circumstances. There seems,
however, to have been no great crisis of confidence until the late
second century when under Gommodus the denarius further slipped
in weight to 2.93 gm. and to 67% fineness, while under Septimius
Severus, though the average weight of the denarius was a little
higher at just over 3 gm., the fineness sank still further to about
50%. Egyptian papyri of this period show a doubling of wheat
prices in terms of silver and copper and in the early third century
the wheat price is tripled.
Not only does the lack of reliable economic statistics make it
difficult to detect the effect on prices of the debasement of the silver
denarius but it leaves uncertainty as to the tariffing of the in terms of the gold aureus. In the Augustan coinage
system 25 denarii were the equivalent of an aureus but it is unlikely
that this relationship was maintained in view of the fall in weight
and fineness of the denarius and the relative maintenance of the
standard of the aureus. The aureus of Augustus had a weight
of 7.85 gm. which was lowered to 7.31 gm. by Nero's reform and
up to the time of Septimius Severus this weight standard remained
almost unchanged, while from the few available figures for the
1. The weights for the period Augustus to Balbinus and Pupienus are taken from
BMC, for the period Gordian III to Gallienus from L. С West, Gold and silver standards
in the Roman Empire, NNM 94, and for Claudius II to Aurelian from coins in the
British Museum. Figures for fineness are from J. Hammer, « Der Feingehalt der
griechischen und rómischen Miinzen » in ZfN 1908, pp. 1 ff, and P. Le Gentilhomme,
Le jeu des mutations de V argent au IIIe siècle, in Métaux et Civilisations I, p. 127. THE REFORM OF AURELIAN 227
fineness of the aureus the decline from Augustus to the later
period is only from 99% to 93%.
At only a very few points in time can an equation of denarii
and aureus be worked out. Only one is at all explicit and none
is very secure. A passage in Dio Cassius1 relating to the time
of Augustus gives the relation of denarius to aureus as 25 to 1 . The
interpretation of this passage is somewhat disputed, for Dio,
writing in the time of Severus Alexander, uses the present tense in
the relevant passage, but the wording of the passage seems to
imply that this was the Augustan ratio and that it was no longer
valid in his day. From a reference in Gaius and another in
Ulpian both Mickwitz and Heichelheim2 have calculated that
about A. D. 225 the aureus was equivalent to 50 denarii. Two
inscriptions from Nubia recording payments in the time of Philip
(A. D. 244-249) have been used by Bolin3 to produce a similar
equation but since the vital figures in the inscription are the subject
of dispute, Bolin's calculation must be regarded not as conclusive
but as no more than indicative. In default of information from
other sources the attempt to define the coinage system at various
points in time must depend largely on the information which the
coins themselves can supply.
Apart from Nero's reform of A. D. 64 and Trajan's recoinage
in A. D. 107 there was no overt change in the coinage system until
spiralling inflation in the early third century made some remedial
measure imperative. This took the form of the reduction of the
aureus to 6.55 gms and the introduction in A. D. 215 by Caracalla
of a new silver denomination which it is convenient to refer to
by its traditional name of antoninianus (Fig. 1,1). Dispute has
long raged as to the value of this new denomination and the
contention that this new coin was a double denarius has in recent
times gained much acceptance. The principal argument4 has
been that, as the radiate crown differentiates the double piece on
both gold and aes, its appearance on the new silver coin should
mean that this too is a double ; for, although the double piece in
gold is twice the weight of the single, the double piece in aes, the
dupondius, is nothing like twice the weight of the As and the silver
1. Dio Cassius, 55, 12.
2. G. Mickwitz, Geld und Wirtschaft im rômischen Reich, p. 281; F. Heichelheim,
Zur Wahrungscrisis des rômischen Imperiums im 3 Jahrhundert n. Chr. in Klio XXVI,
p. 104.
3. S. Bolin, State and currency in the Roman empire to 300 A.D., p. 281.
4. BMC RE V, p. xviii. 228 R. A. G. CARSON
follows the aes in disregarding exact weight, since it was itself
virtually a token coinage.
This, however, is the Achilles heel of the argument. The
antoninianus was in silver of the same fineness of around 50% as
the denarius, and its weight is much nearer that of one and a half
times the denarius than twice the denarius. Only in an artificially
controlled monetary economy could a coin metallically worth
1 y2 times a denarius have circulated with a worth of 2 denarii
without driving the denarius itself out of circulation. If the
antoninianus and had been token coins this might have
been possible, but hoards show that at this particular juncture the
denarius did not disappear from circulation. Had the silver coins
been tokens, it is difficult to see what necessity there would have for any alteration in the standard of the aureus. The fact
that it was reduced to 6.55 gms. suggests that this was a new
expression of the aureus in terms of actual silver coins. The
fact, too, that about the same time Caracalla raised army pay from
500 to 750 denarii is strongly suggestive of a recognition that the
value of the denarius had fallen by two-thirds. It seems, then,
that the antoninianus, metallically worth 1 y2 denarii, was intr
oduced to maintain the relationship of a silver coin to the aureus
of 25 to 1, the earlier of the denarius to the aureus.
The exact equation 1 aureus=25 anto