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THIRD PART

THE EMPIRE

CHAPTER XXIII

THE GOLD COINS

200. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. Augustus while claiming for himself the right to coin the gold and silver, left to the Senate the bronze (739 AVC, 15 B.C.), or to be more exact entrusted to the Senate under his own supervision the coining of the mass of bronze reserving however to himself the right to coin money even of this metal when he so desired.

This will explain the fact that on nearly all the Roman bronze coins issued under the Empire we find the letters S.C. (Senatus Consulto), the symbols of Senatorial authority, and it is only as exceptions to the rule that we find specimens of bronze coins without them wanting these letters, these being coins from among the small number issued by the direct authority of the Roman Emperor. The Imperial Roman coinage in fact comes to us from two sources, the gold and silver and a small part of the bronze from the Emperors, while from the Senate we have the greater mass of the bronze coinage, and only exceptionally a small number of coins of the nobler metals, issued on special occasions. This coinage may therefore be divided into two great divisions, the Imperial and the Senatorial.

It is necessary that these divisions should he clearly grasped (at any rate for the period during which the Senate issued money up to about the time of Gallienus), because it is upon that basis that many questions may be solved, among them those concerning the nature of the so-called medallions which have caused so many doubts and discussions among the learned (see chapter XXVI).

201. THE GOLD COINAGE. During the first three centuries the gold coinage always consisted of the Denarius of gold or the Aureus, and the Quinarius or Half Aureus.

Augustus began to issue the Aureus at the ratio of 40 to the

pound, but this ratio decreased by degrees until at last as many as 45 were issued to the pound under Nero (54-68 A.D.), 50 under Caracalla (211-217), from 50 to 70 under Diocletian (284-305), 72 under Constantine (306-337).

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The period which elapsed between the reigns of Caracalla and Diocletian (211-284) is that of the greatest variation in weight of the Aureus which was sometimes above and sometimes below the

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legal weight. Under Valerian (253-260) the Triens or Tremissus was introduced ( of an Aureus); in the reign of Gallienus (253-268) we arrive at the acme of the confusion in regard to the gold coinage

Fig. 36. · Gold Quinarius of Antoninus Pius.

which oscillated between one and seven grammes, so much so in fact that we are obliged to consider gold as then given and received only by weight.

From the time of Constantine (after the year 306 A.D.), the Aureus preserved its regular weight of of a pound (and sometimes it bore the figures LXXII) even during the Byzantine Empire when it received the name of Solidus.

202. At the time of the division of the Empire (395 A.D.) the legal type for the gold coinage was copied from the gold pieces of the East, where dwelt the Emperor, and this same type was servilely copied in the West by the new rulers.

The Goths living in Italy were obliged to strike gold money bearing the Imperial effigy in order that they might be received in trade and in business contracts. In the course of time the coinage

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grew ever more and more barbarous and rough. About the middle of the seventh century the coinage called globular appeared in the East, that is a coinage of the greatest thickness and smallest diameter; and in the eleventh century always in the East we see a spe

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cial coinage, thin and concave in form like little bowls or saucers, hence their name in Italian scodellate. These represent the depth of the decadence and they were displaced by the coinage of the new

conquerors.

The Roman coinage disappeared at the time of the ruin of the Empire, giving place to the numerous Communal gold pieces

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