Research project
Coin streams within the Roman West (AD 83-138)
Ancient historians have long been aware that patterns of coin circulation can shed light on levels of economic integration in the Roman Empire. More than forty years ago, Hopkins argued that large amounts of tax money were spent in the frontier provinces and that the non-military provinces recouped the taxes they had paid by selling goods to these military zones. In his view, the quasi-permanent exchange of goods and coins between these actors resulted in the creation of one homogeneous assemblages of coins across the Roman Empire.
- Duration
- 2024 - 2030
- Contact
- Liesbeth Claes
- Funding
-
Starting Grant NWO
Challenging this often-cited model, this case study aims to demonstrate that during the Roman Empire other transactions were insufficiently strong to erase striking differences in regional coin populations. In addition, the project seeks to show that the role of the central Roman government (including provincial administrators) was not confined to striking coins and paying soldiers, but also involved the topping-up of regional coin streams.
This sub-project will consist of two work packages:
Firstly, coin hoards – clustered finds of coins, usually deliberately hidden in antiquity, but never retrieved – are considered the best evidence for reconstructing coin circulation patterns. The mind-boggling amount of hoard evidence and the absence of large digital databases may be identified as the main reasons why relatively little process has been made in this field. This case study aims to provide an important break by combining a quantitative bigdata-driven approach with qualitative approach by exploiting the possibilities opened up by the recent creation of the open-access database ‘Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire’ by the university of Oxford. To constrain the hoard data, the project will analyse three thematic coin messages that almost continuously appear on coins: imperial succession, victory, and largesse. Since hoards can be dated with a high degree of precision and can be pinned by their specific find-spot, this first work package will be capable to reconstruct the coin circulation patterns for the western territories in the Roman Empire at the height of its power (AD 83-138).
Secondly, a diagnostic approach needs to be adopted to the data assembled from the hoards in order to identify the agents (central government, provincial authorities or private agents) behind similarities and radical changes observed in the reconstructed coin circulation patterns. For this work package, a content analysis of documentary texts (literary and epigraphic) and the conceptual interpretation of these sources can broaden the understanding of which monetary officials and institutions have been in office and, subsequently, identify whether they played a role behind certain movements of the reconstructed circulation of the thematic coin type groups. The results of this work package will facilitate investigation into the agency behind coin streams and the degree of imperial control.
