Nathan P Murphy

This thesis, to be submitted in 2018, will examine the effects of coinage reforms on the hoarding and use of silver coinage from the reign of Trajan to that of Septimius Severus. It forms part of the AHRC-funded research project 'A third century crisis? The composition and metallurgy of Roman silver coinage, Septimius Severus to Valerian and Gallienus', led by Professor Kevin Butcher of the University of Warwick and Dr Matthew Ponting of the University of Liverpool.

This thesis will examine the circulation life of the legionary denarii of Mark Antony from their issue in 32/31 BC to the end of the denarius system in the mid-third century AD. Particular attention will be paid to comparison between the centre of the Empire, Italy, and the frontiers in Britain. The majority of evidence used will be in the form of coin hoards, although individual site finds will also be discussed.

The thesis begins with an introduction to the monetary history of the legionary denarius, followed by an examination of previous studies on the topic and an explanation of the format and methodology to be used. Analysis of the coin hoards and commentary on the results will form the second chapter. This is broken down into several chronological sections in order to allow the creation of a narrative and the investigation of the effects of various monetary reforms on the life of the legionary denarius. The final chapter then summarises the findings as well as discussing possibilities for future research.

Examination of hoard evidence suggests that Republican coins, including the legionary denarius, circulated widely during the Julio-Claudian period alongside freshly minted coin. The reforms of Nero caused the slow but steady reminting of earlier, finer issues, but the legionary denarius appears to have been unaffected due to its lower silver content and reputation for poor quality. The reforms of Domitian marked the beginning of a concerted effort to remove early coin in order to create financial stability, and by the time of the completion of this process under Trajan and Hadrian the legionary denarius seems to have ceased circulating in Italy and declined severely elsewhere. In some frontier regions the legionary denarius continued to be used, returning to hoards, sometimes in significant numbers, following the reforms of Antoninus Pius and then Septimius Severus. The legionary denarius then finally seems to have disappeared from circulation during the monetary turmoil of the mid-third century AD. Whilst many questions remain regarding the legionary denarius, it is hoped that this work will provide fresh insight into its history and, through it, into the working of the Roman monetary system.

Discussions of the Roman economy often emphasise monetary reforms as key watersheds in the decline of the denarius coinage system. Decreases in the weight and/or precious metal content of the gold and silver coinages are cited as both the cause and effect of monetary and fiscal problems within the empire. The eventual collapse of the currency in the mid-third century AD is therefore commonly interpreted as an integral part of the wider period of political and social turmoil known as the ‘Third Century Crisis’, lasting from the assassination of Severus Alexander in AD 235 to the accession of Diocletian in AD 284.

However before we link changes in the coinage to social upheaval it is important to investigate how far the public were aware of, and how they reacted to, monetary reforms. This paper will examine both literary and archaeological evidence to explore the ways in which Roman currency was valued, and how the Roman concept of economic value changed over time. If we can establish how the value of the Roman coinage was determined then it may be possible to explain how changes in the currency were received and the impact of these changes on the economy and Roman society. This could have important implications for both monetary histories of the Roman imperial period and discussion of the crucial events of the third century AD.

Coin hoards provide historians with a great deal of information about the economy and currency of the ancient world, but how much can they tell us about the people who buried them? Who were they? What drove them to gather their worldly wealth and hide it away? And why did they never come back to retrieve their possessions? Answers to these questions would provide vital context to scholars, and allow us to determine how to use hoard evidence in economic studies.
It has been suggested that hoards mostly represent the savings of soldiers, who stashed away their pay and then, whether due to death or military movements, never came back. If true this hypothesis makes several important implications about hoard data, and as such it deserves detailed scrutiny. Several criteria can together be used to determine the connection between hoards and the army. Geographically, if the majority of hoards were left behind by the military, more militarized regions should contain a greater number of hoards than peaceful areas. Periods of conflict and civil strife would show increased hoard numbers as fewer soldiers would return to collect their treasures. Sudden troop movements, such as during wartime, would also lead to the loss of hoards by soldiers. This paper will use the above criteria to compare the Britain, a frontier region with a large military presence, with the central province of Italy, to examine how conflict affects hoarding and, by extension, how closely hoarding patterns are linked to the military.

Was money used in day-to-day life in the provinces of the Roman empire? An answer to this question would shed a great deal of light upon the nature and complexity of the Roman economy, revealing whether it was a fundamentally primitive system relying on barter and gift exchange or whether it was more similar to a modern monetary economy. The province of Egypt has often been regarded as atypical and so is generally set aside by scholars of the Roman economy. However recent research has suggested that Egypt may not necessarily have been so unusual, opening up to study a province with abundant documentary evidence on the economic life of the Roman world. One particularly fruitful area of research is on papyrological sources relating to the renting of agricultural land. Quantitative studies of published land leases from the Hermopolis region of Egypt have demonstrated an increasing use of money for payments by tenants to landlords during the first three centuries of Roman rule, followed by a steep decline. This provides evidence for both the fluctuating level of monetisation in rural Roman society, as well as aptly demonstrating how the nature of the economy is influence by wider political and social events. A study of land leases from Oxyrhynchus would appear to confirm this view, and the huge number of available lease contracts from other agricultural areas of Egypt provides fertile ground for further analysis of monetary use in rural Roman Egypt.

The nature of the Roman economy is complex and multifaceted, a problem which is compounded in rural areas by a chronic shortage of documentary and material evidence. The level of monetary use in the countryside is a particularly debated topic and a model of rural economic exchange would provide great insight into the nature and sophistication of the Roman economy at large. This paper aims to investigate the level of rural monetisation in three parts. First it defines the terms of the study and gives some historiographical context. Then it moves onto the first of two case studies, that of Roman Egypt, before ending with a survey of rural Roman Britain. It aims to determine how the level of money use in each of these two provinces changed throughout the Roman imperial period, and to compare and contrast them to discover how far the evidence of Egypt’s abundant documentary evidence can be extrapolated to the wider Roman world. The picture revealed is one of widespread monetary use in the daily life of the inhabitants of the countryside, complemented extensively by more traditional forms of exchange such as payment in kind. The use of both documentary and numismatic evidence demonstrates general trends in monetisation affected by political events in the Roman empire, as well as regional variations and peculiarities.