Investigating the production of Roman gold coins in the ‘Year of the Four Emperors’

For some 200 years, Roman gold coins anchored the Roman monetary system. Bronze and silver coins had a fixed relationship to the gold ones. When both the fineness and the weight standard of the gold coinage were radically reduced in the mid-third century AD, it appears this fixed relationship finally collapsed and a fundamental shift in Roman economy was caused. The fabric of Roman gold coins is, then, a highly important part of Roman economic history. In this proposal we intend to examine the three evidently debased coins of Galba, Otho and Vespasian.