Baz

Translating sums of Roman money into modern ones is just not working, the numbers won't give you any real picture. This is because the value of our currencies change very rapidly and due to the fact that most services and materials had very different values back then compared to today. Most things are very much cheaper today (as how much bread you can buy for one hours work) I prefer to compare Roman sums of money to how many kilos of say pork or how many sandals you could by for one hours decently skilled labour. Now these kind of numbers are difficult to find (Unless you use Diocletianus price edict from the early 4th century) but it's worth the trouble in my opinion. I would post a more elaborated argument if I had the time, I'll try after my exams next week. Do you think it's cheaper now ? Surely it would have been cheaper then, you had slaves and all you had to do was feed and water them.

Oh they had banks, they were called treasurys, the banking system can be found in ancient Greece also it's a really old institution. Most of the comforts we enjoy today were made by the Romans you know :-)

Oh they had banks, but they were called Treasury's in those days, the banking system can be found in ancient Greece also. Banking is a really old institution and all the money lenders worked for the Treasury and collected the taxes from Roman subjects to keep the Roman Senate's treasury going.

I was just wondering how much money would have been in the Roman coffers or banks compared with todays goverments ? Would they have been in money terms in the millions rather than billions ? I was wondering if