Landmarks
Understanding a coin from this period means knowing where in the upheaval it was struck. Nine dates place almost everything that passes through our hands.
The murder of the last Antonine opens a year of civil war. Four emperors strike coin in 193; their brief issues are the rarest of the period.
Caracalla creates a radiate coin worth two denarii for about one and a half times the weight. Debasement becomes declared policy.
Power is settled by the army. The bronze sestertius sees its last great run of striking under Gordian III.
Under Gallienus the antoninianus falls below 5 per cent silver: a bronze flan whitened at the surface. Prices soar and hoarding empties circulation.
A new silvered coin marked XXI, and the reconquest of Gaul and Palmyra. The legend RESTITVTOR ORBIS accompanies the recovery.
Diocletian restores the argenteus in fine silver and generalises the bronze nummus. The mints are reorganised from London to Antioch.
The price freeze fails within a few years, but leaves the most detailed tariff surviving from antiquity.
Constantine strikes a gold coin at one seventy-second of the pound, about 4.5 g. It will stay stable for seven centuries.
The founding of the new capital shifts the centre of gravity of the coinage eastward, and closes the period covered here.
The matching coins are in the online catalogue.