A History of the Roman denarius: The bigatus denarius and the commercialisation of the Roman economy, to the time of the Social War

By J. Greg Deane

The wider use of a portable currency, in the form of the bigatus denarius, from the time of the Second Punic War, coincides with a bifurcation of Roman socio-economic conditions. The landed gentry who sought gain through military risk were challenged from the last quarter of the third century by a class that sought calculated gain. Widespread monetisation using lower-value, more portable coins than had been available in the past made work and entrepreneurship gainful. As Broughton maintains, the new class of entrepreneurs were not only petty traders, but equites who saw trade as a more profitable and less risk-laden alternative to war, resulting in a socio-economic counterweight to the landed optimates. The opportunities for advancement that had been the exclusive preserve of the honestiores were open to at least some groups among the humiliores, to those who were prepared to make prudential investments, based on minimised risk. Such opportunities were antithetical to the high level of risk inherent in military endeavour. Further, in an economy in transition, like the Roman economy in the 3rd century, land and some agricultural output had its own intrinsic value that can be reckoned autonomously, while picayune monetisation facilitated economic valuation and consequent mobility of labour. The Hannibalic War hastened labour mobility through displacement of refugees, but many of these were sustained in urban environments through money wages.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1973163063
• ISBN13: 9781973163060
• Release Date: October 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"