A History of the Roman World (48 page)

The Greek cities of southern Italy coined silver: Tarentum from the mid-sixth century, Cumae from
c.
500
BC
, Naples and the Etruscans from
c.
450
BC
; but the Romans were slow to develop a monetary system of their own. The view that Roman coinage began about 340, when Capua issued the so-called Romano-Campanian series for Rome, has now been generally abandoned and the development of Rome’s early coinage is set later.
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In early times values were estimated in terms of oxen and sheep; hence the word
pecunia
(money), derived from
pecus
. The Romans were content to barter or to use copper weighed in the balance (
aes rude
); about 430
BC
a law was passed by which for the collection of fines 100 pounds of bronze was equated with ten sheep or one ox. It was not until 289 that the office of triumvirs of the mint was established, probably for the purpose of casting the so-called
aes signatum
, bronze in bars weighing some six pounds each and bearing types on each side (such as a shield and sword, trident, anchor, elephant, sow, ox); only one of those that survive bears a legend, ROMANO (RUM). Since these bars lacked a mark of value and had to be weighed, they were money rather than coins, but probably at the same time real coins were issued: circular bronze
asses
, marked 1 (one
as
) and weighing a pound. The first of these libral
asses
was probably the series that had the heads of Janus and Mercury on its two sides. It was followed by other series, which include that with a wheel as a constant reverse type on all denominations (a reminder of Rome’s interest in
road construction and starting perhaps in 269) and the more famous Janus/prow series (probably
c.
225) which remained the normal type of Roman bronze coinage throughout Republican times. It was the war with Pyrrhus and closer contacts with southern Italy and its silver coinage that led Rome to produce in a southern mint two issues of silver coins, marked ROMANO (RUM), for war purposes: the types were Mars/horse’s head, and Apollo/horse. Then in 269 the mint officials produced a silver coinage in Rome with the same legend and showing Hercules/wolf and twins; this was soon followed during the First Punic War by another series showing Rome/Victory (both with corresponding bronze). Meantime the old
aes signatum
was falling into disuse and struck bronze began to replace the cast
aes grave
. Then after the war followed four silver issues marked ROMA, of which the fourth (
c.
230: 235, 225?) depicted a young Janus and Victory in a chariot (
quadriga
) and became known as a
quadrigatus
. At much the same time came the libral bronze prow series. Thus although Rome had been slow to adopt a coinage, under the stimulus of the Pyrrhic and First Punic Wars she not only accepted this civilized medium of exchange but took to it with open arms. Traders and Roman soldiers serving in southern Italy and Sicily would benefit, and Rome’s international status was enhanced.

The Hannibalic War had sharp effects on the coinage. The weight of the
as
declined steeply: to a semi-libral standard near the beginning and then rapidly to a triental and (214?) quadrantal. Soon after 215 the
quadrigatus
was replaced by a smaller
victoriatus
(with reverse type of Victory). A year or so earlier an emergency gold issue was made (Janus/oath-scene) when Naples, Paestum and Syracuse sent gifts of gold to Rome, and then
c.
211–209 a second gold issue (Mars/eagle): after the defection of the Latin colonies 4,000 lb of gold were taken out of the reserve. In or about 211 a radical change was made with the introduction of a new silver
denarius
(= 10
asses
, and showing Roma/Dioscuri on horseback), linked to a sextantial bronze system. This new bimetallic system remained the basis of Rome’s coinage throughout the rest of the Republic.

Thus Roman coinage was issued to meet the requirements of war rather than of trade. Practical needs were met by practical solutions, not by constructing economic theories. Hence wartime difficulties forced the Senate partially to repudiate its debts by reforming the coinage instead of by establishing a permanent war debt to be funded and repaid over a long period. The financial policy of the state followed the lines of its political development. In Italy Roman colonies would naturally use Roman coins, while many independent Greek states and some Latin colonies issued coins in early times. But Roman coinage gradually predominated and after the Hannibalic War the Romans claimed a monopoly. In the provinces no uniform policy was enforced. In the west convenience generally led to the
establishment of a Roman monopoly. A policy of enlightened self-interest was shown in Spain where beside Roman coinage native silver (
argentum Oscense
) was allowed to circulate in the second century, partly as a medium for the payment of tribute and partly to facilitate commerce within Spain. Carthage also continued to issue money. In the East where the Romans found a variety of issues existing they did not interfere with local coinage. Their wars there rather served to bring the money of the East to Rome. So great was the flow that many Eastern nations were forced to go off the silver standard, although Roman exactions may have been a contributory rather than the chief cause of this.

The late invention of Roman coinage attests the simplicity of the financial problems of early Rome. But her intrusion into the Mediterranean world and the strain of the Punic Wars forced the Roman treasury to shoulder heavier responsibilities. Towards the end of the First Punic War when the treasury was exhausted and taxes could not be increased, the government followed the example of a Greek ‘liturgy’ or a modern war loan: a fleet was raised by public subscription, but with the understanding that the state would refund the money in event of victory. The main source of income was taxation. The usual
tributum simplex
was a one-mill tax (one-tenth of 1 per cent of property values); this might be increased in wartime. Other sources were rent from public land, an indemnity of 100 talents from Hiero, and profits from the sale of prisoners and booty. The cost of the war to the Roman treasury has been estimated at some 100 million denarii. The Hannibalic War strained the treasury still further. In 216 an acute shortage of money led to the appointment of
triumviri mensarri
and a slight inflation by reducing the weight of the
as
. In 215 double
tributum
was levied; later this may have been still further increased. When cash was exhausted, credit alone remained; in the following winter the praetor called on warprofiteers to offer supplies for Spain by contract on indefinite credit, and three companies of nineteen men responded. In 214 crews were supplied by ‘liturgy’, state building contracts were undertaken on undated promises to pay, slaves were bought on credit for military service, trust funds of widows and orphans were taken over by the state, many knights and centurions refused their pay. To meet a fresh crisis in 210 the state borrowed the savings of the citizens: much jewellery, plate and precious metals were voluntarily contributed. In 209 the reserve sacred treasury was used, and when twelve of the Latin colonies refused to supply further troops or pay, the other eighteen offered more. After Metaurus had relieved the strain, the twelve defaulters were punished in 205–204 by the imposition of direct taxation, based on a census, in addition to their other obligations. From this taxation two-thirds of the voluntary contribution of 210 was repaid in 204 and 202; the third instalment was paid in land in 200 when the Macedonian War claimed financial support. Scipio’s African expedition was largely financed by voluntary help. The treasury receipts during the war
have been reckoned at 286 million denarii (citizen tribute, 65 million; tithes of Sicily and Sardinia, 24; port dues, etc., 10; booty, 65; sacred treasury, 5; loans, contributions, super-taxes, etc., 117). The corresponding expenses of 286 million are estimated at: army stipends, 180 million; food for allied troops, 36; land transport, 15; arms, 20; navy and transport, 35. The average annual expense of the war was about 3½ times greater per annum than during the First Punic War.
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During the first half of the second century national wealth rapidly increased. Roman property, which may have been worth some one thousand million denarii in 200
BC
, was doubled or trebled in value by 150
BC
, while the population had increased about 50 per cent.
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War indemnities, booty, and the Spanish mines formed new items of income. In 187 Manlius Vulso persuaded the Senate to repay all the outstanding
tributum
still owing from the Hannibalic War; this perhaps only included the super-tax over and above the
tributum simplex
. By repaying 25½
tributa
the government finally liquidated its war debt. In 167 citizen taxes were discontinued and ten years later the treasury had a balance of 25½ million denarii in its vaults. Professor Tenney Frank has worked out the budget of the period as follows. Income, 610,600,000 denarii (war indemnities 152,100,000; booty and Spanish mines, 159,500,000; citizen tax, 60 million; rents from public land, 63; provincial tithes, 130; other vectigalia, 46). Expenses are reckoned at 555 million denarii (army stipend, 300 million; food for allies, 64; transport, 50; navy, 58½; public buildings, 20; super-tax repaid, 22½; other expenses, 40). These figures may well be 50 per cent too high or low, but at any rate they give a valuable idea of the scale of Roman finance for a period when 77 per cent of the national income was devoted to military costs.

The evidence for the purchasing power of money is still more slender. It has been reckoned that in the second century a bushel of wheat cost 3 denarii; olive oil, 10 denarii an amphora (26 litres); ordinary wine, half the price of oil; beef, perhaps 2 or 3
asses
: a complete suit, 100 denarii; a lady’s wardrobe 1000 denarii; farm slaves, about 500 denarii; a plough ox, 60–80 denarii. Wages were low. A slave could be hired out at ½ denarius a day; free labour may have earned a little under a denarius. Thus a labourer who earned 300 denarii a year might be able to feed and clothe himself and his wife on two-thirds of his income, leaving the meagre balance for house rent and extras. At the other end of the social scale the estate of Scipio Africanus may have been worth a million denarii.
¹²

The Etruscan chieftains who settled in Italy reduced many of the natives to serfdom and doubtless acquired alien slaves by trade and piracy. There is no
definite evidence that serfdom survived in Etruria in Roman times, but it still existed before the First Punic War when some serfs at Volsinii, who had been freed by their masters for military service, seized the government, and thus brought Roman punishment on their own heads, and were perhaps reduced to slavery. Whether in early days the Etruscans had introduced serfdom into Latium is uncertain. But in the difficult years that followed the fall of Etruscan power the plight of the small Roman farmer was wretched and some citizen debtors must have lost their freedom in the economic struggle. In law, of course, a slave was not a person but
res mancipi
, the property of his owner who could inflict any punishment, including death, unfettered by any legal limits. The extension of Roman power throughout Italy had two results: the condition of the Roman peasants improved, and the number of slaves, created by conquest, increased. But the slave was not yet regarded as a profit-making machine, though occasionally skilled workers might be used for profit. As he and his master generally belonged to the same or similar races, he was treated as a servant of the family and worked by his master’s side in the fields. He shared in certain festivals and was allowed to keep his savings (
peculium
) with some hope of eventually buying his freedom. Emancipation was frequent and in 357 a law was passed imposing a 5 per cent tax on manumission. Since 4,000 lb of gold had accumulated in the treasury from this source by 209, an average of some 1,350 slaves may have been freed each year. The political generosity of the Roman government towards this freedman class which in general took the place of clients attached to the great houses is discussed elsewhere (p. 289); at the end of the third century Philip of Macedon, writing to the inhabitants of Larissa, called attention to the liberal policy of the Romans in granting full citizenship, including the right to hold office, to liberated slaves (Dittenberger,
Sylloge
II, 143).

Before Rome’s conquest of the Mediterranean world slavery was not such a grievous blot on her civilization as it became after her contact with Carthaginian, Hellenic and Oriental ideas. The supply of slaves was maintained, partly by children born to slaves in the house (
vernae
; who were usually treated with particular kindness), but more especially by warfare. It has been reckoned that the First Punic War produced some 75,000 slaves whose sale brought the Roman treasury 15 million denarii. During the Hannibalic War the capture of Tarentum alone produced some 30,000 prisoners, while the war captives of the first half of the second century may have numbered 250,000. The demand was increasing, both for mere labour in the country and for more educated slaves for domestic work in the town. After Cannae slaves had been freed for military service, while landowners called to the front would require slaves to run their farms in their absence. With the growth of the plantation system in the second century, slave labour largely supplanted free on the big estates, since free labourers were liable to be called away from agriculture to the army.

The increasing prevalence of slavery in the second century had a deteriorating effect both on Roman character and on the conditions of the slaves themselves. Carthaginians, Spaniards, Greeks, Macedonians and Syrians poured into the slave markets. As manumission was common many foreign freedmen or their descendants achieved full Roman citizenship; lower moral standards from the east crept into Italy and ultimately the Orontes flowed into the Tiber, though only the beginnings of the movement are visible in our period. The more educated slaves would be used in the towns, where they often alleviated their lot by pandering to the increasingly luxurious tastes of their masters, who were frequently less cultured than they were; others drove much free labour out of the manual trades. In the country gangs of the more barbarous slaves worked the
latifundia
under the control of slave-bailiffs. They were often treated as mere beasts and sometimes worked in chains. Cato, who in his early days had toiled with his slaves, showed a revolting callousness, working them till they dropped or selling them when they became useless. He allowed them a blanket, a tunic and a pair of wooden shoes every second year. Still more wretched were those who worked in the mines of Spain or Macedon. Such conditions led to insecurity in Italy: runaway slaves naturally turned to brigandage, and conspiracies became more common. Punic slaves in some Latin cities tried to rebel in 198; two years later a legion was required to suppress an outbreak in Etruria; others rioted in Apulia in connection with the Bacchanalian conspiracy (186–180); the serious revolts in Sicily, however, belong to a later period. This brutal and degrading system was a canker that gnawed at the healthy life of Italy; it remained for Stoicism and Christianity to remind men that a slave was a fellow human being.
¹³