Coins were still the main type of currency used, although some were still using cattle and shells and stuff like that. The coins were usually pure in whatever metal they were made of; gold, silver, bronze, etc.

     In Rome though, Emperor Nero started to debase the gold and silver coins, that means he started to put other, usually worthless, metals in with the gold or silver in the coins, to stretch out his supply. People found out about it, and as a result, it started to take more coins to buy anything. That's called inflation.

     The problem with the Roman coins got so bad that, at one point, the banks refused to accept any copper coins because they contained hardly any copper! And, at one point the amount of silver in a roman coin was less than 4%!

     Different Roman emperors tried different ways of bringing the inflation down, but none had too much success. One emperor tried to mix new pure coins in with the old, but people just kept the pure coins and used the old ones, driving inflation up even more. Another announces price controls and standard wage rates, but these were resisted or ignored by the people.

     A good example of inflation was with the denarius, a Roman coin. Early on, one pound of gold was worth just a few thousand denarii. But, as inflation started to take its toll, the value of the denarius slid and slid, until a pound of gold was worth 100,000 denarii. It got worse. A few years later, you'd need 300,000 denarii to buy that same pound of gold.

Did You Know?

The denarius was so worthless in Egypt, that it took over 2,120,000,000 denarii to buy a pound of gold!