In this volume, Erik Christiansen uses Alexandrian coin hoards to explore the use of money in Egypt from its conquest by Augustus in 30 BC to Diocletian's currency reform in AD 296. Although these finds, with their wide array of Graeco-Roman and Alexandrian reverses, have traditionally been classified as a part of Greek coinage, he demonstrates clearly that they belong to the Roman imperial coinage. The hoards also show that Roman Egypt enjoyed a widespread monetized economy, in addition to the credit system described in extant papyri. The relative abundance of such documents provides Christiansen with a good supplemental source of information for his conclusions. And since financial administration is known to have been quite uniform throughout the empire, this book provides a useful window on not only Rome's shifting economic fortunes but also monetary policy in other provinces, which did not leave behind the rich heritage of coins and documents that Egypt did.

A broadly-illustrated overview of the contemporary state of Greco-Roman numismatic scholarship.

Coins were the most deliberate of all symbols of public communal identities, yet the Roman historian will look in vain for any good introduction to, or systematic treatment of, the subject. Sixteen leading international scholars have sought to address this need by producing this authoritative collection of essays, which ranges over the whole Roman world from Britain to Egypt, from 200 BC to AD 300. The subject is approached through surveys of the broad geographical and chronological structure of the evidence, through chapters which focus on ways of expressing identity, and through regional studies which place the numismatic evidence in local context.

In Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, noted classicist and numismatist Kenneth W. Harl brings together these two fields in the first comprehensive history of how Roman coins were minted and used.