
Hundreds of Roman gold coins found in basement of old theater - daddy_drank
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/roman-gold-coins-italy-cressoni-theater-trnd/index.html
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pp19dd
Late imperial era, a slightly fuzzy date range. Included emperors Marcus
Aurelius, Commodus (hello, Hollywood), followed by a very turbulent period
from which my favorite emperor comes from, Geta. Because you don't want to be
a Geta.

Powers that be issued a damnatio memoriae after his assassination where they
tried to erase every trace of him, including his images from portraits:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Portrait...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Portrait_of_family_of_Septimius_Severus_-
_Altes_Museum_-_Berlin_-_Germany_2017.jpg)

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mojowo11
For anyone else as ignorant about this period of history as me, the Wikipedia
articles are a real trip.

Geta -- murdered by his co-emperor and brother because they didn't like each
other (aged 22)

Caracalla (the brother) -- murdered at the behest of Macrinus while urinating
on the side of the road (aged 29)

Macrinus -- reigned one year before being defeated by an uprising that brought
14-year-old Elagabalus to power, ultimately beheaded

Elagabalus -- married and divorced five times during his four-year reign,
including to the widow of a man he had executed and possibly also to a man;
was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guards, beheaded, and his body was
dragged around Rome (aged ~18)

Severus Alexander -- replaced cousin Elagabalus, did alright for quite a while
(13 year reign!), but ultimately pissed off his military by trying to not
fight the Germans, and was assassinated by his own generals, along with his
mother

Maximinus -- made emperor by the Praetorian Guard, which caused the Senate to
revolt; marched on Rome to put down the revolt, and was opposed by a series of
emperors (numbered below) nominated by the Senate; ultimately murdered by his
own military after failing to easily take Rome

(1/2) Gordian I/Gordian II -- father and son, rose to power while in Africa at
the behest of the Senate; Gordian II was quickly defeated in battle by a
supporter of Maximinus, after which Gordian I killed himself (reigned 21 days)

(3/4) Pupienus/Balbinus -- co-emperors after the death of the Gordians.
Pupienus went out to fight Maximinus on the field, and returned to Rome
successful. Balbinus stayed in Rome and fucked everything up. The two did not
get along or trust each other, and ultimately both were murdered by the
Praetorian Guard (reigned 3 months)

(5) Gordian III - Made Emperor at the age of 13 and sorta held it together for
a remarkably long time, but ultimately died in Mesopotamia either at the hands
of military enemies or his own army (aged 19)

I'm only stopping because I need to get back to work.

~~~
quadcore
Game of Thrones sounds like a kindergarten show now. Almost sounds like a good
game idea too: you play a roman emperor and the goal is to survive as long as
possible knowing surviving a day's gonna be hard.

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atwebb
For anyone curious (I'm no expert) on the period value of this, I've seen
estimates of ~$750,000 of purchasing power.

These are Aureus which equal 25 Denarius (silver coin of the time) which is
roughly 1 full day of labor. So ball park 25 years of labor at 300 working
days a year.

I realize this is fuzzy, just an idea.

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pmiri
Best word of the article has to be numismatist: expert in rare coins.

~~~
atwebb
To punch it up a bit, it's anyone with an interest in collecting/preserving
coins or currency. Doesn't have to be an expert or rare. Coin/paper
money/exonumia (tokens, fantasy issues) collectering = Numismatics

Also, fun fact for anyone reading, you can buy true, ancient Roman/Greek coins
for a few bucks. Nice silver examples from certain well known emperors are
often <$50. Just go on vcoins or somewhere reputable.

~~~
anfractuosity
Yeah I always thought that the price of Roman coins, compared to more recent
coins such as Tudor etc. is so cheap, I assume that's mainly due to there
being so many of them?

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atwebb
I believe so, and I'm referring to bronze coins (so pennies/low value). It's
likely that there are just a slew of them as well. Rome existed for 1000 years
and was developed and widespread. They would have travelling mints go along
with the armies/expeditions and mint coinage on site. It winds up spreading to
everywhere, hence the hoards found in the UK.

It may have been that less were melted down as well, Roman currency was good
for a long time.

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claydavisss
This is a great example of why people still hold gold as a safehaven asset of
last resort; it was valuable two thousand years ago and it is still valuable
today.

Gold's value has survived being buried, natural disasters, war, peace, ends-
of-empires and anything else the world has thrown at it. Even after two
thousand years it is simple enough to verify that gold is relatively pure.

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21
This gold in the day would have made you one of the richest persons around.

But today that gold is worth only about $50k (300 coins * 5 grams) The
millions of dollars quoted are the historical artefact value.

~~~
claydavisss
Right, I was referring to the assayed value, not the historical value.

Gold is basically unique in history as a material with very little practical
essential use for most people who have held it...yet holds value durably over
the centuries.

~~~
tehwebguy
Finally, an investment vehicle I can bury for 1600 years and know it will
still have value when I come back to it!

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bswitzer8
Sounds like back in the day it was still expensive to go to the theater.

