Nero cuts the denarius silver content
In 64 AD, under fiscal pressure from the rebuilding of Rome after the Great Fire and ongoing military expenses, Nero issued a new denarius with roughly 10 percent less silver than the coin Augustus had established. The weight dropped from about 3.9 grams to 3.4 grams, and the silver content fell from roughly 98 percent to about 93 percent. It was the first imperial debasement on record — and the first demonstration of the political attraction of the method. The emperor kept the face value unchanged, and the holders of the older coins (and the soldiers paid in the new ones) absorbed the difference.
Nero's debasement was modest by later Roman standards, but it set the precedent. Once the technique existed politically, every subsequent emperor under fiscal pressure reached for it. Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla each reduced the silver content further over the next 150 years.
01 · Coin Clipping
The earliest documented currency debasements happened in the Roman Empire, when emperors under fiscal strain began secretly reducing the precious-metal content of coins while leaving their face value unchanged. The mechanism was crude: mint the same denarius or antoninianus, but with less silver. Over roughly 240 years, the Roman silver coin went from about 97 percent silver under Augustus to under 2 percent silver during the Crisis of the Third Century. Each emperor who debased the coinage inherited a slightly lighter silver content and left it slightly lighter still.
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