The Supply and Use of Money in the Roman World 200 B.C. to A.D. 300

Abstract

The supply and use of money are topics which lie at the heart of our understanding of the Roman economy and fiscal system. The view we take of these matters affects both our picture of everyday life and the economic models we construct to describe the structure and development of the Roman world. Monetary history is also relevant to social and political change, as medieval historians know well. In the great commercial revolution of Europe in the thirteenth century it was the increasing availability of money which allowed the payment of knights and civil servants and thus broke the hereditary grip on these functions, enabling the first post-feudal states to emerge. So in the Roman world the availability of money permitted the creation of a professional standing army and of a system of salaried officials.