Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 1 1911.djvu/74

40 tion between the time of Augustus and that of the Severi, it was not such as to throw out of gear the taxation and the commerce of the Empire. But with Caracalla a rapid decline set in, and by the time of Aurelian the disorganisation had gone so far that practically gold and silver were demonetised, and copper became the standard medium of exchange. The principal coin that professed to be silver had come to contain no more than five per cent of that metal, and this proportion sank afterwards to two per cent. What a government gains by making its payments in corrupted coin always far more than lost in the revenue which it receives. The debasement of the coinage means a lightening of taxation, and it is never possible to enhance the nominal amount receivable by the exchequer so as to keep pace with the depreciation. The effect of this in the Roman Empire was greater than it would have been at an earlier time, since there is reason to believe that much of the revenue formerly payable in kind had been transmuted into money. A measure of Aurelian had the effect of multiplying by eight such taxes as were to be paid in coin. As the chief (professing) silver coin had twenty years earlier contained eight times as much silver as it had then come to contain, he claimed that he was only exacting what was justly due, but his subjects naturally cried out against his tyranny. No greater proof of the disorganisation of the whole financial system could be given than lies in the fact that the treasury issued sackloads (folles) of the Antoniani, first coined by Caracalla, which were intended to be silver, but were now all but base metal only. These folles passed from hand to hand unopened.

Diocletian's attempts to remove these mischiefs were not altogether fortunate. He made experiment after experiment, aiming at that stability of the currency which had, on the whole, prevailed for two centuries after the reforms of Augustus, but never reaching it. Finally, discovering that the last change he had made led to general raising of prices, he issued the celebrated edict of A.D. 301 by which the charges for all commodities were fixed, the penalty for transgression being death.

Constantine was forced to handle afresh the tangled problem of the currency. The task was rendered especially difficult by the fresh debasement of coinage which was perpetrated by Maxentius while he was supreme in Italy. It may be said at once that the goal of Diocletian's efforts was never reached by Constantine. He did indeed alter the weight of the gold piece, which now received the name of solidus, and it continued in circulation, practically unchanged, for centuries. But this gold piece was to all intents and purposes not a coin, for when payments were made in it, they were reckoned by weight. The solidus was in effect only a bit of bullion, the fineness of which was conveniently guaranteed by the imperial stamp. The same is true of Constantine's silver pieces. The only coins which could be paid and received by their number,