Tag: Alexander the Great

Articles

Tiberiana 3: Odysseus at Rome – a Problem

The choice of a name is contingent on a number of factors or combination of factors, from individual taste to cultural influences, from liking the sound of it (forwhatever reason), to honoring relatives and friends, to expressing admiration for public figures past and present, real, fictional, or divine. Roman patterns of naming were also influenced by the involvement not just of family members but of slave-owners as choosers of names…and by the blending of very different systems of nomenclature in the great tapestry of cultures woven in the capital city.

Articles

Coin quality, coin quantity, and coin value in early China and the Roman world

How was the valuation of ancient coins related to their quality and quantity? How did ancient economies respond to coin debasement and to sharp increases in the money supply relative to the number of goods and transactions? I argue that the same answer – that the result was a devaluation of the coinage in real terms, most commonly leading to price increases – applies to two ostensibly quite different monetary systems, those of early China and the Roman Empire.