nm5082: right well this is namex and he's going to talk about the feasibility and use of Roman aes grave the type of currency that was used immediately before the Hannibalic War which broke out in two-hundred-and-eighteen B-C so over to him and he has the aes grave in front of him nm5083: yes er these are rather large and heavy coins cast from bronze er one of the er comments that was almost said about the Romans was that er you'd have to carry all your savings around in a wheelbarrow which er feeling these you can understand er nm5082: what's the approximate weight of this nm5083: i think that one is er nm5082: it's about ten ounces isn't it yeah nm5083: and that was effectively er a fifth of the large er nm5082: aes signatum blocks nm5083: aes signatum blocks which i think we've got nm5082: right nm5083: some pictures of there right this was broken down into the various units we've got semis there which was half of that and then these er the denomination is denoted by various pips er going down from four three two and one show the currency er at this time Rome had four different currencies this one seemed to be an intermediary between the Italian blocks of bronze and the er the coins that circulated in south Italy er i-, this tended to circulate within Rome itself and that area whereas Rome had other currencies to exchange with the with the other cities it traded with the other areas er but obviously after a while this this became very inconvenient and Rome worked down to er initially a couple of currencies different types of currency and then down to the silver denarii as standard although at the time the they which that presents i-, was still nominally the er the unit of currency in Rome nm5082: yes how were they actually produced do you think nm5083: er i think from this you can see that it's er a a cast was produced and you've got a little nodule there so it was poured into the cast it's probably cast with two sides because you can see there it doesn't quite join in the end nm5082: mm nm5083: so that was probably an individual cast with some of these er there could be a number of coins put in the same cast and be joined nm5082: yeah nm5083: perhaps top and bottom nm5082: yes you'd have to look for the entry and exit points nm5083: yes nm5082: wouldn't you on the side nm5083: you've also got things like air bubbles where it hasn't actually er the molten metal hasn't actually flowed into all the spaces available there er then again on this one you see that quite a bit and also where where it's worn at the edges as well nm5082: yes well the important thing to to bear in mind with this is if the the value was actually within the the metal itself there's no aspect of it being a token coinage er this circulates as a kind of low grade bullion currency and you've got one ass worth of bronze within it so you could simply hand it over and get one ass back unlike the modern currency where you can't get anything back essentially except er more of the same er what what kind of er purchasing power have we er any information about the kind of purchasing power these things had nm5083: yes we have but i can't think of it at the moment nm5082: wasn't it something like a hundred a hundred of these would buy you an ox and ten would buy you a sheep nm5083: yes nm5082: that was er basically it so this is why i suppose people took their their wealth around on carts if you wanted to buy anything of er particularly large value then certainly that was the only way to do it nm5083: that's one of the inherent problems of the coinage that's whether the coin matches the actual value of the metals nm5082: yes yes nm5083: in terms of the nm5082: why were the Romans fixated on on the value actually in-, inherent within the metal itself and why bronze why didn't they i mean they did have silver currency but as you said it was for er trading with states that had a basic silver currency why were the Romans so fixed on bronze for themselves nm5083: well bronze was very plentiful it was also er used as a standard currency in central and er northern Italy nm5082: mm nm5083: er and it also seemed to take quite a long time for the Romans to get their heads around the idea of the fact that a coin didn't have to represent er the value of the metal contained er nm5082: but this was true of the whole of the ancient world wasn't it nm5083: yes nm5082: it's true of of those states that are on a a silver basis for their currency they too have got er the idea that weight equals value and it's only it's only with the advent into the Greek world of bronze that nm5083: yes nm5082: er we er actually depart from that idea nm5083: it's certainly the case i mean but er it's quite i mean the fact that this was still being produced in three-hundred er B-C quite late on the Romans still continued for many years to produce a coinage that was based purely on value nm5082: mm nm5083: er and it took them a while to remo-, to re-, to actually stop producing that coinage where for a period they were producing both that and the silver standard nm5082: yes yes nm5083: er nm5082: but for different purposes nm5083: yes this is it nm5082: which is the strange thing they managed to di-, to divorce the the basic er purpose of their currencies th-, they they it's as though we were working on the the pound internally but externally we were dealing with dollars over euros er but in many ways its no no different from say what's happening in er in Russia where you can use the the rouble internally but externally of course they have to deal with dollars nm5083: mm nm5082: but it's a it is almost peculiar system where er the very weight of this kind of currency actually militates against its use it's not something taht one could even d-, use on a day to day basis you couldn't buy a cabbage with any of this kind of material nor i think would you want to nm5082: right okay well this is namex again talking about the feasibility and use of fifth and fourth century Athenian currency which is based not on bronze but essentially on a silver standard er ranging from the f-, the four drachma piece down to the one-twenty-fourth drachma piece nm5083: yes with the er the silver coinage was effectively based on a er a content of silver within the er the coins that represent the value er the problem here was when you got down lower in the coinage until the pieces were so minute as to be very easily lost in fact looking at these two there's virtually no difference between them to the naked eye in fact you could probably go as far as saying the three of them that's point-one-sixth of a gram and that's point-two-one of a gram and that one's point-three-two of a gram er but as far as picking them up carrying them around it would be very difficult to tell the difference er this coin here is the obol which is renowned as the the coin they put under the tongue to pay the ferryman er when you're dead of course er these silver coinage er silver Athenian silver coinage so it's got the the famous owl on the reverse and the head of Athena on the front nm5082: well one of the problems with these as you've already mentioned is the difficulty of of differentiating them nm5083: mm nm5082: there was at times an attempt to differentiate by reverse motifs a lot of them still have the owl on er but that one for instance as you can see just has a single crescent on er nm5083: and even that would be difficult nm5082: that would be difficult nm5083: unless it's a bright light nm5082: yes but as you can see on that one you've got well originally three crescents on because basically it's three times the value of that nm5083: yes nm5082: and one of the later er series for the obol since it was four of those had four crescents on but this one actually isn't it's an earlier one and still has the the owl and where you've got the standard owl motif that's when you've got problems in differentiating one from another nm5083: yes it's certainly the case with these the visibility of any design on the back nm5082: mm nm5083: would be a very difficult to see nm5082: yes nm5083: and also you've got the corresponding difference in quality i mean fitting a head on that compared to that it's er nm5082: mm nm5083: would be very easy i mean with this looking at the quality of the er the head er any forgery would tend to be poorer quality and look poorer quality but something like this it'd be very difficult to tell what is was it looks very little more than a blob nm5082: yes it's qu-, very badly centred nm5083: mm nm5082: so that's one of the problems we get that but what is strange is that in er in finds it's this material and especially the tetradrachm which is far commoner to find than these smaller things now why do you think that is nm5083: well finds tend to be er things like hoards of coins nm5082: mm-hmm nm5083: that people keep these could very easily get lost first of all but secondly if you were hoarding coins you'd hoard higher value coins rather than nm5082: mm-hmm nm5083: effectively low value coins that were more or less worthless nm5082: yes i think that's probably it i mean most of these very small things would have found their way into the ground by accident nm5083: mm nm5082: and either be overlooked in excavations since they would simply be encrusted in dirt and er and not recognized or in certain circumstances which is simply corrode away nm5083: yes nm5082: and it would not be left with anything but these of course do have a certain presence and as you say they are the ones that are preferentially er hoarded because they're big value and two obols in the fifth century was what was er the equivalent of er social security that would keep a man and a wife for a day so a tetradrachm which is what seven times that is going to be a big value coin and more than a week's wages for most people but what's interesting about this one is that it's actually been chopped nm5083: yes nm5082: is there any significance to that nm5083: yes to er check that it is actually silver quality of the coin make sure that it's not er a plated coin a forgery nm5082: well if you were plating it what what would the check then reveal nm5083: it would show er a lesser value metal such as nm5082: could be nm5083: er you could put something like bronze in there nm5082: mm so you'd make a bronze core and then put a layer of silver on either side and then use some forged or stolen dies to create it and then by chopping it which has obviously been done by a banker with a chisel you're trying to prove whether it's forged or not fortunately that one isn't we can see there there is a slight they were beginning to get differences in the pose of the owl in this fifth century half obol these are side-faced and this one is definitely full- frontal and then as you work your way down and back to the side as well so there is obviously been some attempt to to differentiate at some stage by the pose of the owl er but to a large extent there's not much that one can er do about er people who insist on filing a little bit off to make a profit that way and then passing the er c-, coin off as the real thing of full standard weight but how feasible do you think these are in in use i mean you mentioned the small size of them how would you carry them around nm5083: be very difficult you could carry it under your er under your tongue for example it would be safe nm5082: yes we do hear stories of people carrying them under their tongues just have to hope they don't get slapped on the back and swallow them nm5083: well that's it nm5082: but otherwise i think you'd have to carry these into you know a very a very well constructed pouch nm5083: mm nm5082: or purse nm5083: can imagine a lot of them would get lost very easily nm5082: mm yes there is recent research on on these coins has suggested that they are they were originally far more plentiful than find current finds er actually suggest which i think if it it's if it's correct and it seems to be correct would prove that er the loss rate and the total disappearance rate has been very much heavier towards this end of the production than against that end nm5083: certainly they'd be more used more in day to day er purchases so nm5082: yes nm5083: imagine that that would be the case nm5082: though even so when you're getting two of those to keep you and your wife for a day even this is going to have a certain er degree of of fairly high purchasing power since that is an eighth so is basically a sixteenth of your er your er subsidy for the day nm5084: the thing in fact the thing about the Greek coins over the the aes grave we were looking at earlier is that these are struck nm5082: yes nm5084: rather than cast er and nm5082: what would the dies be made of then nm5084: that's a good question actually nm5082: well it's certainly not silver but i mean what other metals were available nm5084: er bronze probably nm5082: yeah i think it is nm5084: bronze nm5082: it must have been bronze er because of course the bronze itself had to be had to be worked like er a gem-cutter cutting the gem nm5084: to create the to create the image nm5082: yes to create the negative image that could then be used on the er to create the positives nm5084: we had the animal that the coin would go on and the die itself er probably created that one you think nm5082: yeah so the nm5084: nm5082: animal the die would have the obverse the head side nm5084: yeah would have the obverse nm5082: mm-hmm nm5084: and the die would sit on top nm5082: yes nm5084: and you get which is why you get this squeezing out the material on each edge nm5082: yes that's nm5084: as the as the coin is compressed nm5082: yeah that's the the sign of the original form of the die punch wasn't it nm5084: yes nm5082: it created a square pattern nm5084: you can see you can see it just about here nm5082: yes nm5084: the square of the original die nm5082: yeah so that the you've got an image actually within the square of the die punch nm5084: these as you as you stated earlier these are Athenic from Athens er you can see the the mark of Athens there as well as er the owl other areas within Greece had different designs er turtles tortoises er nm5082: you had shields from Thebes as well didn't you nm5084: shields from Thebes so nm5082: so virtually every city state would have its own nm5084: had its own design nm5082: have its own design yes nm5084: which made them er easily recognisable as coming nm5082: mm nm5084: from that city state nm5082: but these don't seem to change essentially you get the the Athenian head er all the way back from the beginning of the fifth century all the way through er until Athenian's currency effectively ended nm5084: mm-hmm nm5082: i mean even when the currency is undergoes its first major revamp sometime towards the end of the second century er Athena's head stays there nm5084: still in the same place nm5082: and this particular type of head stays very much the same for well over two-hundred years why do you think the Athenians would want to do that and especially since the old the the the actual sh-, form of the head is very much an archaic head er when in terms of statuary they were producing stuff that was much more f-, er sophisticated why would they want to stick to an old design like that nm5084: becomes recognizable nm5082: why would how would it function as a recognizable feature nm5084: er okay well if you're if you're continually changing the design er you can keep that side as the owl but if you're continually changing the design er then you're m-, moving away from standardized coinage nm5082: why would the Athenians want a very standardized coinage for over two- hundred years nm5084: er nm5082: was there something about the the area of of circulation with this currency nm5084: er nm5082: if i can interpose the answer for you nm5084: yeah go on then nm5082: it's basically it is an international currency nm5084: yeah nm5082: and they go out of their way to make it like a collecting the dollar nm5084: yes that was what i wanted to say but nm5082: yeah nm5084: i couldn't find the words to say it nm5082: so it was it's they're they're stamping their city imperialistic tendencies upon their coinage so that these are used in preference nm5084: yeah these nm5082: to anything else nm5084: yeah they're trying to dominate the currency market basically nm5082: yes yes nm5084: which is what Athens tends to do nm5082: mm-hmm nm5084: er and this was what i was trying to say that that nm5082: and this comes acceptable everywhere nm5084: yeah it becomes very easily recognizable and it's standardized nm5082: yes nm5084: and becomes acceptable in fact they are trying to dominate the entire area nm5082: yes in fact these these take over from the Aegina turtles don't they nm5084: yes eventually nm5082: as an international currency that's accepted by everybody like the the dollar today nm5084: mm nm5082: and then Alexander the Great comes along and he does exactly the same it's really the battle of who's got the greatest amount of bullion nm5084: well it's based on the weight standard as well nm5082: yeah nm5084: er some city states had different weight standards nm5082: mm-hmm nm5084: er and Athens at at one point attempted to standardize on on this weight nm5082: and to make everybody else standardize nm5084: and to make everybody else standardize on those nm5082: yeah nm5084: and Alexander eventually did exactly the same and moved towards the Athenic weight standard nm5082: yes and er knocked it off its pedestal nm5084: knocked it off its pedestal nm5082: simply by force of of volume so these things thanks to the Laurium mines were big business they were thrown out in their millions er they were spent on large prestigious state er enterprises like the building of the Acropolis and the building up of the Athenian navy and they were they basically flooded the market with them and anybody else who wanted to er do any international trade of any soon found that these were the acceptable types of coins being used right across er the Greek world in preference except on a very local basis to anything else