Coins and Trade

This paper analyses the hoard evidence from fourth century CE Egypt in order to asses the degree of economic integration between the province and other territories within and beyond the Roman Empire. This analysis also aims to highlight the role of the city of Alexandria in long-distance exchange. Alexandria not only housed the only official mint in Egypt, but it also acted as one of the major redistributive centers for goods being traded within Egypt and between the Roman Empire, India and the East, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The publication of coin finds from Syria has provided an opportunity to investigate the economic world of the province in the late antique and early medieval periods. However, the field is divided into extremes with works such as Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages providing a synthetic view of the economy, drawing from a large number of diverse sources, while numismatic works offer nuanced detail about minting and circulation at local and provincial levels, and often limiting themselves to the interpretation of single finds.

The production of Roman Imperial Coinage at a number of mints throughout the Empire provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the extent to which coinage might have moved across the Empire. Roman Provincial Coinage, local coinage that was primarily restricted to Eastern mints and users, also provides a useful lens to assess long-distance connections between remote areas of the Empire and beyond (Howgego 1994).

Could one ancient currency become an integral feature in other monetary systems through trade, or have roles in regions that do not recognize it as money? This paper investigates the functions—both monetary and otherwise—of Roman imperial coinage once traded in the Indian subcontinent in the early centuries CE. The use of Roman coins, specifically silver and gold denominations, in the trade with India is well-attested in various literary sources (e.g. the Periplus Maris Erythraei) and the thousands of Roman coins uncovered throughout the subcontinent.

One of the most important monetary systems of Classical Greece was so-called Aiginetan standard silver coinage, struck by numerous states, especially in central and southern Greece, on a unique weight system. By the early 2^nd c. BC, however, in the same regions in which Aiginetan coinage had predominated we find in use almost exclusively silver denominations that are similar in type but about 20% lighter.

The Iron Age indigeni of Sicily used bronze objects as currency, weighed against a pound that the Greeks called the litra. With the introduction of Greek-style coinage in 550 BC, the litra took on new significance as a small silver coin equivalent to the native bronze measure. Though the first litrai were minted at Greek cities, indigenous Sicilians were minting their own by the mid-fifth century. Initially bound to the native bronze standard, as at Himera, the litra was soon assimilated into the Attic standard at Syracuse as one-fifth of a drachm.