Silver Coinage Under the Emperor Nero

DEBASEMENT OF THE Silver Coinage Under the Emperor Nero BY T. LO UIS COMPARETTE, Ph. D. NEW YORK 1914 V JL43359 1 ONE HUNDREDS COPIES REPRINTED FROM THlE AMoERICAN JOURNAL OF N UMISAFATIUS VOLUME XLVII " . " . "."" " " DEBASEMENT OF THE SILVER COINAGE UNDER THE EMPEROR NERO. BY T. LOUIS COMPARETTE, PH. D. The paucity of extant records pertaining to the coinage of Rome during the first century of the empire makes it very difficult to reach an understanding of the many changes which the coins themselves dis- close took place in that period, extending from the first issue of gold at Rome by Julius Caesar to the reign of Nero, or between B. C. 49 and A. D. 62, the probable date of important legislation in the principate of the latter emperor. This may be accounted for largely by the fact that readers of the historians and other writers were so completely removed from participation in the affairs of government that important histori- cal facts regarding legislation and administration did not interest them. Government had become a personal affair and history took on the color of personal gossip. But the lack of records may also be due, and probably is chiefly due, to the fact that the alterations in the coins were of purely administrative origin, and thus there were no vital legislative enactments to record. However, currency matters must have frequently occupied the at- tention of the senate and imperial council during the first century of the empire; for the new imperial coinage laws would certainly require numerous modifications to adjust the currency to the needs of an empire whose far-flung dominions presented the greatest diversity of trade and commerce, and whose local coinages had to be taken into consideration by the framers or reformers of the imperial system. And such normal conjectures as to what would probably happen are in various ways con- firmed by the evidence of extant coins and apparently also by the fate of the local provincial mints, which in the western provinces, and in the cities of Africa, were soon closed - none of these continued their bronze coinage after the principate of Claudius. Briefly stated, the chief changes in the Roman coinage in the period above mentioned were a reduction of the weight of the aureus from 1/4o to 1/45 of a pound, or from about 8.175 to approximately 7.266 grams, making a decrease of nearly 12% in its value; and in the reign of Nero DEBASEMENT OF THE SILVER COINAGE UNDER NERO the silver denarius which hitherto had been kept very nearly the original weight of isi of a pound, or 3.90 grams, was reduced to 1/96 of a pound or 3.41 grams, and its value still further reduced by the inten- tional introduction of a base alloy of approximately 15% the total weight. In the case of the gold coinage the reductions took place gradually, we are informed by Pliny, (N. H. XXXIII, 3, 47), for reasons not now known with certainty. The view of Mommsen, and of others, that the alterations in the gold coins indicate a misuse of the mint for illegal profits does not entirely satisfy; and it seems much more plausible that the gradual shifting of the value of gold to a higher figure reveals fre- quent efforts to meet the exigencies arising from the many-sided currency situation. For it will be recalled that the imperial currency system was established with a four-metal standard, coins of gold, silver, orichalcum (brass) and bronze, all being of unlimited legal tender and all receivable for public dues. The enormous gold coinage of Caesar in B. C. 49 had flooded the market with the yellow metal and produced a violent disturbance of the long-established ratio of value between gold and silver, which dropped from 1 to 12.5 to about 1 to 9. The long period of the ruinous civil wars and interrupted commerce was not adapted to scientific currency reforms, and the unsettling produced by the Cae- sarian gold coinage must have re-echoed long afterward in the Via Sacra. Yet changes were made rather early, and very likely intended to correct the errors of the system, for some of the aurei of Augustus were struck at the reduced rate of 42 to the pound, and it may be well doubted if the new master of Rome would sanction what would have been virtually a fraudulent policy to assist the fiscus at the expense of the people and that, too, just at a time when the emperor was using every means to imbue the minds of the Romans with the belief in the superiority of the new order of government and the righteousness of his own policies. Those who are acquainted with the prolonged dis- cussions and recurrent legislation which bimetalism has caused in modern times, especially in the United States, will be rather inclined to discover in the various changes in the value of the aureus, begin- ning in the principate of Augustus, repeated efforts to improve the currency and adapt it to changing circumstances. And not only the internal mechanism, as it might be called, of a currency based upon a four-metal standard had to be adjusted, but also its outward relations to the local conditions and commercial relations of the tribute paying provinces. DEBASEMENT OF THE SILVER COINAGE UNDER NERO It is not my purpose, however, to pursue consideration of the vicis- situdes through which the gold coinage passed any further than, as already done, to point out the much greater probability that the occa- sional alterations in the aureus were due to rational measures to effect almost certainly necessary readjustments of the complex currency, than to the easy but questionable inference that the early emperors or corrupt officials surreptitiously reduced the weight of the gold coins for their own profit. It is not indispensable to the main purpose of this paper that the integrity of the imperial mint service be established, yet that proposition if established by facts, would at least make it clear that the debasement of the silver coinage in the principate of Nero was a measure dictated by statesmanship whose explanation was worth seek- ing, and not a scheme resorted to by a corrupt court and thus to be dis- missed with appropriate execrations. Before the principate of Nero, remedies for currency difficulties were sought in modifications of the gold coins; while the silver, and of course the base metal coins,* were left untouched. But now, apparently in the year B. C. 62, a denarius of reduced weight, as already A.D- stated, was authorized, and there is every reason to believe that the new standard was authorized by law. So far as the gross weight of the silver piece struck at this time is concerned, had it been of pure silver the older ratio between gold and silver would have been restored and .old complications brought back. But I believe that we shall see another reason for the reduction in weight; and as to the renewal of currency difficulties those were effectually prevented by reducing the standard of fineness from approximately 990 to 850 thousandths of fine silver, which rendered the silver coins virtually subsidiary and, with the re- strictions on the base metal coinage, thus practically introduced a single gold standard. To state some legitimate grounds for this debasement of the Roman silver coins is of course the chief purpose of this paper. More definitely than in the case of the gold coins the debasement of the silver currency in the principate of Nero has, without exception in so far as the writer knows, been pointed out as due to corrupt motives. This easy method of disposing of the question has been helped along somewhat by reference to the insurrection involving the monetarii in the time of Aurelian; for according to some of the writers (Suidas s. v. MovETaptot; Eutropius, IX: 14) the great army of mint employees and * The coinage of orichalcum and bronze was strictly controlled by the senate and the amount of such base coinage was so carefully limited to the needs of retail trade, that the limited volume can hardly have caused serious disturbance of the currency. DEBASEMENT OF THE SILVER COINAGE UNDER NERO officials rose in rebellion when the emperor attempted to put down the systematic peculation long carried on by fraudulently debasing the coins and appropriating the bullion thus saved. But it is exceedingly doubt- ful if the late writers have preserved the correct explanation of the disturbance, and besides it is hardly safe to interpret events of the time of Nero by reference to transactions in the much later principate of Aure- lian. Yet our modern writers seem to have taken the case as proved. Thus the generally accepted theory is that in order to refill the imperial treasury which Nero's follies and vices had depleted - the depletion also largely assumed - his government debased the silver coins by somewhat over 25% of their value, but still issued them at the same valuation as before, the fiscus realizing heavily on the transaction. M. Lenormant (La Monnaie dans L'Antiquite', III, p. 30) entertains no doubt as to the original ground for the change: Le nom seal (Nero) de l'auteur de ces alterations . .. suffit pour en faire ressortir tn grand et precieux enseignement; and more recently, J. Hammer, in the Zeitschrift fir Numismatik, Bnd. XXVI, p. 95 attributes a quasi state of bank- ruptcy'at Rome to the prevailing luxury, to expensive foreign wars, and to the enormous cost of rebuilding the city following the conflagration in A.

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