Silver and the decline of the Roman Empire

[Spark268]

I'm reading through this paper, and I'd like to share this graph, showing the % of silver in roman coins:

 

 

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/intranets/staff/butcher/debasement_and_decline.pdf

 

So towards the back-end of pax romana, the golden age of roman history and prosperity, no pun intended, all the silver had been withdrawn from the coin. This happened over 200 years, and during this period, there is very little historical evidence of inflation. The price of gold and silver probably shot up, as there was less gold and silver to split against an increasing number of people, resources, technology etc. 

It suggests that there was a period of advancement facilitated the debasement: i.e. the increase in production and population outweighed the inflation.

Once it had hit 0%, the monetary system lasted approx 50 years, before a reset. 50years, ironically, is exactly the number of years since the closing of the gold window in 1971.

[HawkHybrid]

13 minutes ago, Spark268 said:

So towards the back-end of pax romana, the golden age of roman history and prosperity, no pun intended, all the silver had been withdrawn from the coin.

what was the debasement of roman gold coins over the same time period?

 

14 minutes ago, Spark268 said:

Once it had hit 0%, the monetary system lasted approx 50 years, before a reset. 50years, ironically, is exactly the number of years since the closing of the gold window in 1971.

 

the comparison year you want is 1946, the last year that british circulating coins contained any

actual silver. so far it's been 75 years and counting.

 

HH

[Spark268]

15 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

what was the debasement of roman gold coins over the same time period?

 

from what i understand it varied, and at times was replaced with silver. However, the gold backing remained. 

The timings might not match. The romans supposedly had a very limited understanding of fiscal and monetary policy, which was counter-balanced by the speed at which news travelled the empire, now its vice versa. 

[HawkHybrid]

16 minutes ago, Spark268 said:

The timings might not match. The romans supposedly had a very limited understanding of fiscal and monetary policy,

 

that's my point. the so called debasement of coins(storage of value) is all over the place and

no where near as clear cut as the charts are supposedly making it out to be. values change,

methods change. salt was valuable in those days, in the past sugar was also a lot more

valuable than it is today, as was cheese. are those commodities due for a reset comeback?

 

HH

[Bigmarc]

I watched a documentary once about this, might have been the secrets of Oz, can't remember. Anyhow, at the end of the Roman empire they talk a lot about how they kept the public entertained, the gladiator battles, feeding to the lions, the people had more and more of a infatuation to sex. I thought back the the similarity was believable. It went on to an experiment they did with mice. The provided mice with all their needs. They didn't need to do anything for themselves. What they found out was all the mice did day in day out was groom themselves. Again this just reflects today's society. 

One thing I wonder what might be different today is. Did any other currency of that time line do the same and drop silver? 

I ask this because I don't think any bank in the world keeps silver in its reserves anymore.

[HawkHybrid]

19 minutes ago, Bigmarc said:

I ask this because I don't think any bank in the world keeps silver in its reserves anymore.

 

has any bank kept silver in it's reserves ever?

 

19 minutes ago, Bigmarc said:

Anyhow, at the end of the Roman empire

 

when exactly was this? the roman empire would split into the western roman empire and the eastern

roman empire. the eastern roman empire would then go on the path to become byzantine.

 

HH

Edited May 14, 2021 by HawkHybrid

[Spark268]

31 minutes ago, Bigmarc said:

The provided mice with all their needs. They didn't need to do anything for themselves. What they found out was all the mice did day in day out was groom themselves. Again this just reflects today's society. 

the mouse utopia experiments. provide an abundance of food, abscence of predators and within two generations the mice stop breading...

 

Quote

Universe 25 started out with eight mice, four males and four females. By day 560, the mouse population reached 2,200, and then steadily declined back down to unrecoverable extinction. At the peak population, most mice spent every living second in the company of hundreds of other mice. They gathered in the main squares, waiting to be fed and occasionally attacking each other. Few females carried pregnancies to term, and the ones that did seemed to simply forget about their babies. They'd move half their litter away from danger and forget the rest. Sometimes they'd drop and abandon a baby while they were carrying it.

Quote

Other young mice growing into adulthood exhibited an even different type of behavior. Dr. Calhoun called these individuals “the beautiful ones.” Their time was devoted solely to grooming, eating and sleeping. They never involved themselves with others, engaged in sex, nor would they fight. All appeared [outwardly] as a beautiful exhibit of the species with keen, alert eyes and a healthy, well-kept body. These mice, however, could not cope with unusual stimuli. Though they looked inquisitive, they were in fact, very stupid.

 

[Spark268]

22 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

has any bank kept silver in it's reserves ever?

 

yes. many countries had a silver standard, until a glut of it in the 18th century lead to its removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_standard

 

24 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

when exactly was this? the roman empire would split into the western roman empire and the eastern

roman empire. the eastern roman empire would then go on the path to become byzantine.

its difficult to define exactly, although the graph in my original post gives a good indication of when it achieved peak strength as proxied by the population of Rome at around 300 BC. The roman empires did exist in various forms until the 19th century (aka the first Reich), although towards the end they were a fraction of peak strength. Global steel production did not recover from peak levels for 1700 years.

 

[Simmoleon]

The Romans precious metal issues followed the age old problem that their empire grew so big that demand outstripped supply - they had to pay a lot of soldiers and builders. They invaded all their foes for their metals and then invaded some allies and took theirs but eventually they reached the point that the empire couldn’t invade anybody and had to try and defend itself instead. It’s mines in Iberia and other places started running dry so they created new coinage.

They introduced the antoninianus which was worth 2 denarii to try and resolve some of their issues but this had less silver than 2 actual denarius and hence, people hoarded denarius which caused inflation issues. As the Romans struggled to find silver they just kept adding other metals to the antonninianus until they basically weren’t silver coins but had a silver wash instead. At this point, they became so worthless that losing them seemingly meant little and hence, they are abundantly found today in fields all over Europe and North Africa.

Then they had to re-visit their coinage and they had coins like the siliqua which returned to actually having silver in them but again they had issues with people clipping the edges off them etc. Nobody even knows the value of a siliqua but they were pretty small in comparison to some earlier Roman silvers 

I may have simplified 100s of years history but the Romans silver issues are pretty complex but I would suggest numerous themes are common across other empires/countries and not isolated to the Romans but have been repeated consistently in a cycle 

 

 

[Bigmarc]

40 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

has any bank kept silver in it's reserves ever?

Not necessarily in its reserves but having the currency made from silver and then dropping it must go some way to prove its worth. The way I see it is the silver back then Is a completely different product than the silver we have now. It needs to drop the precious metal label. If it not used in any currency and not stored by banks then it should be viewed no differently than copper. The price may be the correct price for today's usage. 

[HawkHybrid]

38 minutes ago, Spark268 said:

yes. many countries had a silver standard, until a glut of it in the 18th century lead to its removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_standard

 

that doesn't really answer the question. having a silver standard doesn't mean that banks

would hold silver as a reserve. by value gold has mostly been at least ~10 times the value

of silver (per toz). banks have been known to hold gold as a reserve. I'm guessing that it

must have been a long time ago if banks held physical silver as reserve. as opposed to

holding silver as a reserve(like it's a recent change) they are likely to not have held silver as

a reserve for a long time now.

 

HH

Edited May 14, 2021 by HawkHybrid

[KDave]

The debasement process then was a way to tax increasing production by the sounds of your description of advances. Inflation uses as a tax, because that's what it is and always had been. 

[KDave]

Also look to the gold coinage of Byzantium (Rome) for a more complete history of the money, the solidus was consistent throughout Roman history and then into the eastern Roman empire, it was not debased until much later, another 1000 years later, eventually coinciding with the collapse in late middle ages. The fall of Byzantium was the true end of the Roman culture. Silver is quite rare relatively in Byzantine coinage, perhaps because of the stigma associated with late western Roman coinage? From my limited reading the peasants used various bronze coins for day to day trade and exchange, and gold was important for paying the military and civil service, for use in diplomacy and paying mercenaries. It's been a while since I studied or read anything about this time period,very interesting post. 

[HerefordBullyun]

 

[Nowhereman]

On 14/05/2021 at 21:43, Spark268 said:

the mouse utopia experiments. provide an abundance of food, abscence of predators and within two generations the mice stop breading...

 

 

They also created identity politics and mouse tinder and blamed all their problems on the patriarchy.