Rome Took the Silver Out of Its Coins. Why Didn't Prices Move?

For two centuries Rome kept taking the silver out of its coins — until they were almost copper. The textbook says this set off runaway inflation and brought Rome down. But Egyptian papyri show wheat prices barely moving through the worst of the debasement — and then jumping tenfold right after Emperor Aurelian put more silver back in. We test the three steps of the textbook story: did emperors shrink the coin to pay the army, did it cause inflation, and did inflation kill Rome? In this documentary we follow the soldier's pay from Augustus to Diocletian: Tacitus's "ten asses a day", the auction of the empire in AD 193, Severus's "enrich the soldiers", the lead pollution in Greenland ice, the mint workers' revolt against Aurelian, Diocletian's decree that doubled money and his Edict on Maximum Prices — and why a coin with 2–5% silver kept working for decades. CHAPTERS 0:00 Oxyrhynchus, AD 260 1:23 The empire's biggest customer 3:37 Did they shrink the coin to pay the army? 9:17 Did prices explode? 12:45 What held the coin up 15:02 The mint against the emperor 17:38 The decree that doubled money 20:52 Did inflation bring Rome down? 21:58 The answer 23:12 Epilogue: The Frome Hoard SOURCES Kyle Harper, People, Plagues, and Prices in the Roman World (Journal of Economic History, 2016) Kevin Butcher & Matthew Ponting, The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage (Cambridge UP, 2014) Christopher Howgego et al., Coinage and the Roman Economy in the Antonine Period (2010) Merav Haklai-Rotenberg, Aurelian's Monetary Reform: Between Debasement and Public Trust (Chiron, 2011) Kevin Butcher, Debasement and the Decline of Rome J. R. McConnell et al., Lead pollution recorded in Greenland ice (PNAS, 2018) M. A. Speidel, Roman Army Pay Scales (JRS, 1992); W. Scheidel, State revenue and expenditure in the Han and Roman empires Tacitus, Annals 1.17; Cassius Dio; Herodian; Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 7; Edict on Maximum Prices (tr. A. Kropff) #RomanEmpire #EconomicHistory #History