It’s one cabbage, Diocletian, how much could it cost? 10,000 sestertii?
Edit: I should clarify this, because it looks like I’m describing inflation here. When Romans ran out of new conquests and mineral deposits, they debased their currency (reduced the amount of precious metals in the coins) which caused the value of new coins to be lower, but also caused those metals (and by extension older coins) to be worth more.
Bitcoin is similar in that there’s only a finite quantity of them, so once they are all “mined” the value of BTC would tend to increase forever, which is one of the main reasons why it’s worthless as a currency: why would you get rid of something that is increasing in value by the minute?
It’s also why BTC transactions are increasingly tiny fractions, i.e. is being debased, just like the denarius.
Edit: I should clarify this, because it looks like I’m describing inflation here. When Romans ran out of new conquests and mineral deposits, they debased their currency (reduced the amount of precious metals in the coins) which caused the value of new coins to be lower, but also caused those metals (and by extension older coins) to be worth more.
Oh, I was going for a different route.
(note - the decrease in silver content previously was not because of a lack of new conquests or mineral deposits, but because Emperors wanted to spend money without needing to raise or collect taxes on their wealthy supporters)
In the later period of the crisis of the Third Century, inflation had gotten bad - several hundred percent by that debasement of the currency. But when the Emperors chose to reform the currency, at long last, they did so by only marginally improving the silver currency, but reinforcing the gold coins to a high standard and decoupling the value of the silver coinage from the gold. This resulted in ‘merely’ bad inflation turning to hyperinflation for the silver currency, which had its value no longer ‘guaranteed’ by the gold coins, and the golden coins becoming increasingly used - the equivalent of the only bills keeping their value being 100s and 1000s. If those are all you can reliably use, a lot of poor folk are fucking screwed. From there, the deflationary nature of gold (ie the low rate of extraction and transformation into currency due to its rarity) meant the demonetization of the Roman economy, which damaged trade, especially small-scale trade, which screwed… everyone, but the poor, especially.
Traditionally, in pre-information age systems, silver is the inflationary currency - it can be turned into money at a speed greater than the economy can generally grow.
(note - the decrease in silver content previously was not because of a lack of new conquests or mineral deposits, but because Emperors wanted to spend money without needing to raise or collect taxes on their wealthy supporters)
Technically true, but they had gotten by for centuries beforehand through plunder and opening new mines, in particular the enormous ones at Rio Tinto as well as those in Dacia. The system worked fine until there was no grist left for the mill.
But the mines were far from exhausted when the inflation started - inflationary policies of debasing the denarius were clustered from Septimius Severus to Diocletian, and each time done by Emperors whose grasp on power was not secure, yet needed to spend money to maintain their legitimacy.
For that matter, they were far from exhausted when the inflation ended, along with the monetary system.
Rio Tinto was exhausted, or at least exhausted of what could be reached using methods of the time. The output of those mines tapered off around 200AD which coincides (not really a coincidence) with the reign of Severus and the beginning of economic troubles. You’re correct that they didn’t exhaust Dacian mines but they did lose access to them, also not coincidentally a few years before our favourite cabbage-farmer took power and did what he could to right the economy.
That and also an inherently deflationary currency tied to resource extraction. Bitcoin is also deflationary. Coincidence?
“Inflation scary, we must deflate” - Rome Circa 270 AD
“Why do the poors not have any money???” - Rome Circa 390 AD
It’s one cabbage, Diocletian, how much could it cost? 10,000 sestertii?
Edit: I should clarify this, because it looks like I’m describing inflation here. When Romans ran out of new conquests and mineral deposits, they debased their currency (reduced the amount of precious metals in the coins) which caused the value of new coins to be lower, but also caused those metals (and by extension older coins) to be worth more.
Bitcoin is similar in that there’s only a finite quantity of them, so once they are all “mined” the value of BTC would tend to increase forever, which is one of the main reasons why it’s worthless as a currency: why would you get rid of something that is increasing in value by the minute?
It’s also why BTC transactions are increasingly tiny fractions, i.e. is being debased, just like the denarius.
Oh, I was going for a different route.
(note - the decrease in silver content previously was not because of a lack of new conquests or mineral deposits, but because Emperors wanted to spend money without needing to raise or collect taxes on their wealthy supporters)
In the later period of the crisis of the Third Century, inflation had gotten bad - several hundred percent by that debasement of the currency. But when the Emperors chose to reform the currency, at long last, they did so by only marginally improving the silver currency, but reinforcing the gold coins to a high standard and decoupling the value of the silver coinage from the gold. This resulted in ‘merely’ bad inflation turning to hyperinflation for the silver currency, which had its value no longer ‘guaranteed’ by the gold coins, and the golden coins becoming increasingly used - the equivalent of the only bills keeping their value being 100s and 1000s. If those are all you can reliably use, a lot of poor folk are fucking screwed. From there, the deflationary nature of gold (ie the low rate of extraction and transformation into currency due to its rarity) meant the demonetization of the Roman economy, which damaged trade, especially small-scale trade, which screwed… everyone, but the poor, especially.
Traditionally, in pre-information age systems, silver is the inflationary currency - it can be turned into money at a speed greater than the economy can generally grow.
Technically true, but they had gotten by for centuries beforehand through plunder and opening new mines, in particular the enormous ones at Rio Tinto as well as those in Dacia. The system worked fine until there was no grist left for the mill.
But the mines were far from exhausted when the inflation started - inflationary policies of debasing the denarius were clustered from Septimius Severus to Diocletian, and each time done by Emperors whose grasp on power was not secure, yet needed to spend money to maintain their legitimacy.
For that matter, they were far from exhausted when the inflation ended, along with the monetary system.
Rio Tinto was exhausted, or at least exhausted of what could be reached using methods of the time. The output of those mines tapered off around 200AD which coincides (not really a coincidence) with the reign of Severus and the beginning of economic troubles. You’re correct that they didn’t exhaust Dacian mines but they did lose access to them, also not coincidentally a few years before our favourite cabbage-farmer took power and did what he could to right the economy.