My most controversial opinion that nobody cares about:
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My most controversial opinion that nobody cares about:
The debasement of the currency that occurred under Rome's imperial period was a good thing actually. At least up until the Severan dynasty, perhaps up until the reign of Caracalla.
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@Bridgemakes and now, People¹ are suddenly caring about the issue and wondering for whom it was a good thing and how
at least until I get distracted by something else and forget about it, unless you would enjoy going into more detail :D
¹ ok, me
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@valhalla ok, so this is complicated but basically for Rome there were basically 2 ways to increase their silver supply, conquest and mining. Now I know what you are thinking what about trade? Well Rome suffered from the same issue with India as Europe did with China in the 19th century, that is that they imported a lot but primarily only because the other nations wanted their silver. So trade was a net drain on the silver supply.
Now, under the Pax Romana internal trade (1/?)
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@valhalla was flourishing with minimal barriers and generally the empire experienced economic growth, population growth and a standard of living some have compared to the early industrial revolution in north Europe. This generally comes along with an inflationary pressure. I mean just the fact of having more people means you need more coins or else each person would have less on average.
So, if Rome didn't slowly reduce the silver content of the coinage then Rome would have been forced to (2/?)
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@valhalla expand it's silver supply either by conquest (after Trajan this wouldn't have helped as all the silver rich nations were defeated), or by increasing mining (expensive and requiring slaves that are gaining via conquest).
Thus what my theory presupposes is, maybe by slowly debasing the coinage they delayed an economic crisis by preventing deflation where people saw the silver coins as more valuable and became less willing to spend them and more likely to hoard them. (3/4)
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@valhalla personally I am of the opinion* that if the silver content of the coinage hadn't been reduced then Rome would have generally suffered economically, reducing tax revenue, leading to increased taxation to pay the legions, leading to greater unrest, leading to greater concentration of wealth and power in the legions and precipitating something like the crisis of the third century sooner. (4/4)
*And it is just an opinion
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@Bridgemakes that's quite reasonable¹, thanks!
¹ as in, I'm not competent enough to say whether it is true, but it doesn't trigger any warning that it is evidently false
