The Roman Monetary System The Eastern Provinces from the First to the Third Century AD

The Roman monetary system was highly complex. It involved official Roman coins in both silver and bronze, which some provinces produced while others imported them from mints in Rome and elsewhere, as well as, in the East, a range of civic coinages. This is a comprehensive study of the workings of the system in the Eastern provinces from the Augustan period to the third century AD, when the Roman Empire suffered a monetary and economic crisis. The Eastern provinces exemplify the full complexity of the system, but comparisons are made with evidence from the Western provinces as well as with appropriate case studies from other historical times and places. The book will be essential for all Roman historians and numismatists and of interest to a broader range of historians of economics and finance.

Framing the Roman monetary system: an introduction; 1. Statistics and numismatics; 2. Planning the financial policy of the Roman state; 3. Trimetallism and bimetallic laws; 4. The application of the quantity theory of money on third-century economics; 5. Roman monetary integration; 6. Micro-economies; 7. Metallism vs chartalism; Appendix 1. The inscription of Mylasa; Appendix 2. Excavation finds, coin hoards and museums bibliography.

Constantina Katsari is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leicester and a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society. Her publications include numerous articles and reviews on the Roman economy, comparative slavery and ancient identities, as well as three co-edited books: Patterns in the Economy of Roman Asia Minor (2005, co-edited with Stephen Mitchell), Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern (2008, co-edited with Enrico Dal Lago) and From Captivity to Freedom: Themes in Ancient and Modern Slavery (2008, co-edited with Enrico Dal Lago).