That’s cool. Thanks! Mike Duncan goes into the various debasements a reasonable amount in his “History of Rome” podcast (cannot recommend this highly enough - I’ve listened to it twice through now) and I always assumed that it was in the form of just mixing in other metals before minting but that gives me a much clearer understanding.
Oh that definitely also happened but it was a more gradual process spanning the course of several emperors’ reigns in mostly the second half of the second century and the third century CE. First century coins are renowned to be of high silver content, current example excluded.
That’s cool. Thanks! Mike Duncan goes into the various debasements a reasonable amount in his “History of Rome” podcast (cannot recommend this highly enough - I’ve listened to it twice through now) and I always assumed that it was in the form of just mixing in other metals before minting but that gives me a much clearer understanding.
Oh that definitely also happened but it was a more gradual process spanning the course of several emperors’ reigns in mostly the second half of the second century and the third century CE. First century coins are renowned to be of high silver content, current example excluded.