Ancient Coins: The Aureus

The Aureus, a 25-denarius piece was the main storage of wealth used by the romans and the king of its monetary standard for centuries. Today, lets explore some of the history and curiosities about this majestic coin.
A huge shout-out to Savoca Coins for sponsoring this video, stay tuned for their 121th Black Auction, December 19th, 2021, where the beauties featured on the video will be up for auction! If you are not watching this video on time for the sale, don't worry, head over to www.biddr.com/... and have a look at the upcoming auctions, with stunning ancient coins for all budgets.
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Recommended Literature (affiliate links)
100 Greatest Ancient Coins - amzn.to/3hKz1o4
The Handbook of Ancient Greek and Roman Coins - amzn.to/3iTB1vv
Greek Coins and Their Values - amzn.to/3mKng4S
Recommended STORAGE and DISPLAY solutions for your coins (Affiliate links)
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music credits
Music: Towards the Horizon by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License
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[@ClassicalNumismatics]

💰 Help the Channel by "Buying me a Coffee": www.buymeacoffee.com/classicalnumismatics

[@GordonGrant-o1h]

You deserve it Leo ,you have done brilliant work the the Roman coin world.👍👍👍👍

[@GordonGrant-o1h]

Sorry meant the Roman coin world collectors.😮

[@abian36]

The dream called Rome can only be called a dream if it is engraved in gold. Sweet ancient gold.

[@victorvanmurray7664]

These coins are so amazing - and these flowlines! 😍

[@Dgdgdg7471]

Gorgeous coins and a wonderfully informative video! I can only dream of owning a coin of this calibur.

[@leehooks4957]

Amazing video. Terrific work.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Thank you! It takes quite a bit of time and effort, glad to see you enjoyed the result.

[@donklaser217]

Another inspiring video - Thank You!!

[@allanwestphall8108]

A very fine and informative presentation. Thanks for posting and drawing us into the hobby!

[@m.c.miller]

Throwing shade at the modern money printers and their beneficiaries made me laugh. @18:03

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Modern central bankers definitely did not pay attention to their history lessons

[@jonathanhermina1165]

Would love to handle an aureus one day. Awesome video!

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Its one impressive experience, thats for sure!

[@Whitesmokeromania]

Great information..as usual...and one more this ...i can hear you perfect...thanks for getting e new microphone 👏👏👏😁😁

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Thats great to hear! I´ve bought a new microphone and redone my whole audio setting.

[@bigmoney1250]

An ancient Roman would typically receive one aureus for one month of labor. It was the norm in Ancient Rome to take home 12-15 gold coins per year. One gold aureus has about $425 worth of gold content as of December 13th 2021. To put it in perspective the average American could buy 72 gold aureii in one year assuming that the median income for a worker in the United States is $31000. This puts into perspective just how wealthy the average modern person is in comparison to the average ancient person. In fact we are very far from our peak wealth. Ford assembly line workers would make 5 dollars a day back in 1914. A Ford assembly line worker earning 5 dollars a day in 1914 would be the equivalent of an Ancient Roman earning nearly 300 gold aureii in a single year.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

300 aureii per year! Thats some equestrian levels of wealth. Lovely comment, thanks for your contribution, I'll pin it.

[@bigmoney1250]

@@ClassicalNumismatics Thank you I really appreciate the content that you keep putting out. Keep up the hard work!

[@historiamoneta2102]

"An ancient Roman would typically receive one aureus for one month of labor. It was the norm in Ancient Rome to take home 12-15 gold coins per year. One gold aureus has about $425 worth of gold content as of December 13th 2021. To put it in perspective the average American could buy 72 gold aureii in one year assuming that the median income for a worker in the United States is $31000. This puts into perspective just how wealthy the average modern person is in comparison to the average ancient person." Well yes and no. The Gold supply in ancient Rome would have differed from a modern context without the reserves that we have that came from the America's. It could be argued that the Romans having such advanced mining and trade routes the circulation and acquisition of Gold would have been similar but overall I would argue that Gold would have been worth more than in a modern context because of the lack of supply and the inability to process ore in a modern context. I would say that if we took and average of 23-15 gold aureii in reality a person may own 1-2 in a year and that being such an extremes amount of money with high purchasing power. By 1914 $5 Gold piece and the price of a Roman Aureus in trade existed in a world of different markets and living standrads so i feel its hard to compare apples with apples.

[@Pomelu]

Or how very undervalued gold is today

[@mabeSc]

Not really. You are not taking in the purchasing power of each currency and thus your calculations, while they might give someone an idea, are misleading. A loaf of bread would cost half a sestertius and an aureus, like said in the video, was worth 100 sestertii. You could thus get 200 loaves of bread with an aureus. While there are many types of bread in the US, and the industrially made ones cost very little, let's take an artisanal bread as an example for this (as this would require a similar level of labour that the ancient people would have to put into making their bread). With 13 aureii per year this comes out at 2600 loaves of bread that a Roman could buy with that sum. Let's assume the average cost of said bread in the US is $12 (it does vary - hell, in some places it comes as high as $16 to $25) and, with the average salary of an American making $31k then they could purchase 2583 breads per year. As you can see, when you take the artisanal value in mind, then everything is surprisingly similar. Average US citizen making $31k = 2583 loaves of artisanal bread Average Roman making 13 aureii = 2600 loaves of bread

[@geolasik]

Aureus is a very beautiful coin, I wish I lived 2000 years ago, in Ancient Rome, working as a numullarius (money changer) to deal with this beautiful works of art 😊

[@pabloluismorichetti8560]

Excellent note. Thanks for share it, from Argentina.

[@astralclub5964]

We talk about Rome's debasement. I have a $10 US gold coin from 1889 weighing 1/2 an oz that is now worth $1400. And it has very little numismatic value. It's value, like in Rome, is in its gold content.

[@sebbablotgaming2390]

Being a Roman and finding an aureus on the floor 🤑

[@officeguy3]

Excellent video. Thank you

[@zorandodic6370]

Excellent and ramarkable knolige.We learn a lot. Roman gold coins are extremely rare and they can be bought in places wisited the numismatics and investors with the higest bugget.

[@ChandraPraditya]

how much does aureus weigh? and how much percent of purity?

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

The Aureus began at around 8 grams, dropping to around 6, sometimes less at the late third century. It had the highest gold purity achievable at that time, around 95%, maybe a bit higher.

[@douglas61920]

I’m looking to purchase an Augustan Aureus gold coin but I have no idea if the asking price is good or not. Is there a price guide that covers Roman gold coins?

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

No, particularly in today's market. You really need to look into the latest auctions to have an idea of how much the price is.

[@douglas61920]

@@ClassicalNumismatics Is it common that there are so many different reverses on these aureus coins?

[@asheland_numismatics]

I finally got an Aureus of Faustina the elder. 😄

[@norrisf1469]

The Antoninus Pius coin @16:12 was struck for over a decade, but it has COS IIII on it (4th year consul). Did each year have a different number on the coin (COS I, COS II, COS IX, etc)? Or was just one stamp (with COS 4) used for the entire period? So the underlying question is, can the COS numbers be used to determine the exact year the coin was minted?

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

The change in the COS number is directly related to the year an emperor also occupies the position of Consul. This already helps date a coin for a certain number of years, in this case, the year he was consul and any other year until his death. Fortunately roman coins also tend to list other positions, like the Tribunicia Potestas, TRP, which was generally renovated every single year, allowing these coins to be dated to exact years.

[@sanpedrosilver]

Seriously nice coins 👍🏼 I hope to own one someday

[@brettdziekonski1451]

WE HUMANS WILL ALWAYS LOVE GOLD!.......EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT USED FOR MONEY WE STILL WANT IT!!

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Correct!!

[@angusamongus7566]

Fascinating. Great video!

[@sureshkumar-qw9ny]

Gold coins from Rome in India was discovered in plenty in the southern region now the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The cuts you shown is definitely not done in the name of fear of power of rome rather as a quality check. This was also true for any other foreign power that has such solid coins with no proper indication of purity. Considering Rome's fall starting from 1st century i wouldn't be surprised this practice being wide spread throughout the east. BTW such gold coins minted by local kingdom were found in the local region as early as 600 BCE in recent archaeological dig. So i couldn't call later mints as copy of Roman coins rather a evolution.

[@dxer22000]

it was typical of Gold coins in those eras to be around 7 ~ 8 grams of Gold. Why was this increased to around 1 troy ounce in the later centuries? Was this a devaluation of Gold? ie the need to increase the coin size & Gold content. Just curious

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Its mostly a matter of offer vs demand. Gold was exceedingly rare for most of human history. The massive influx of gold coming from the Americas, and with the eventual invention of industrial mining techniques led to an abundance of gold and the issuing of larger coins. The 7 to 8 gram coins, however, still kept being used throughout the centuries. Think about the 20 francs, the Sovereigns, etc. It seems like a gold coin of that weight is a sweet spot. Its valuable enough to be what it was meant to be, a way of saving value, but it is small enough that it is still practical for transactions.

[@davidorrall5757]

Could you tell me what spqr means written on paper please? I was just watching the film on the aureus has one on the back of the trajan coin as you know I just need to see it in writing I heard you four times when I do better when it's in writing thank you very much!

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS

[@davidorrall5757]

@@ClassicalNumismatics I love you videos and always learn from them. I also weighed the day that I have gold coins in my hand however I'm sweeping up on the silver right now! I want to thank you for your videos in the information that you've given me all my lifetime so far!

[@vornadopro6502]

@@davidorrall5757 The Senate And The People of Roma, the power of the Roman Republic and the Empire.

[@tedlawrence4189]

When I first started collecting Roman, you could buy, lower grade Roman gold for not much over it's gold value. This was back 60 years ago. I wonder if that is still the case?

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Sadly thats not the case naymore. They have picked up in price :(

[@jl696]

I find the Domitian coin to be very interesting. Since you say that the message from Vespasian by this coin is that his son, Domitian, would be a future Emperor. This defies what most historians have said about Vespasian investing all his efforts to prepare his son, Titus, to become Emperor, while mostly ignoring Domitian. According to the historians, Domitian, was left largely unprepared to become Emperor due to his father's neglect. Either the historians got it wrong or Vespasian thought Domitian was adequately prepared to assume his future role.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

I dont think the argument of the coin and the historical interpretation are mutually exclusive. As much as the preferred son was Titus, Domitian was still part of the imperial family, and as we know a lot of effort was put into establishing their image as one of people prepared, destined, and to a point even "directly guided" by the divine powers to rule. So although Titus was the designated next Emperor, there was certainly great interest to also show Domitian as a highly dignified man.

[@jl696]

@@ClassicalNumismatics Domitian is a bit of a tragic figure, IMHO. He saw a lot treachery and unprincipled behavior by the Senate before his father assumed the purple. His enmity and mistrust of the Senate sprang from those experiences. Although he never learned how to get along with the Senate, he was a very able civil administrator and his demnatio memoriae was not entirely deserved. Thanks for the excellent content you provide. Nobody else on youtube does this subject better.

[@Shakedown2u2]

good info thanks

[@jileelmcdaniels5549]

Very fine gold coins.

[@rimskirimski]

Would love to see the Aureus Nero and Agrippina filia from 54 AD

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Me too!

[@williamkinkade2538]

Nero Aureus is the more affordable Aureus.

[@PatriceBoivin]

The caduceus was a symbol of commerce? First time I hear that take on the symbol.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Its very common for people to mix Asclepius's rod, the symbol of medicine, which is a staff with a snake, to the Caduceus, symbol of commerce, which is two snakes entwined on a rod and mercury's wings.

[@astralclub5964]

A gold and silver coin had and has value even if the “emperor” on the coin didn’t rule or require “good faith and credit” of the issuing country!

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Nothing speaks "value" like good, solid gold and silver. There are tons of worn coins found of bad emperors and usurpers that were defeated in the civil wars. That means they circulated despite the man depicted on the coin being "evil" on the eyes of the state. As long as the metal was good, it was usable and people gave it value.

[@citizenbubba]

Sure someone else made a list of what the coins realized prices became but here it is again. Lot no #, price in EUR, Depicted, timestamp #27, €2 200, Domitianus 76 CE, 3:32 - 4:49 & 5:59 - 7:01 #29, €8 500, Vitellius 69 CE, 7:01 - 9:40 #31, €16 000, Traianus 112 CE, 10:30 - 12:23 #34, €4 000, Traianus 116 CE, 12:23 - 14:00 #39, €4 400, Hadrianus 125-127 CE, 14:00 - 16:10 #42, €3 800, Antoninus Pius 145-161 CE, 16:10 - 18:05 #51, €800, Theodosius II 402-450 CE, 20:24 - 22:01

[@pukalo]

I'd like a solidus of Majorian, or any coin of Majorian for that matter.

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Sadly his coins are quite rare, even the bronzes. Id like to own one too, Majorian is was fascinating character

[@SDArgo_FoC]

Get ready to pay 1500+ usd for it

[@mrfrisky8152]

I keep my savings in silver & gold 😉

[@isabelcrb]

Wow, dream coins! Too expensive for me

[@williamkinkade2538]

Save your money! Later roman gold 300s to 400s can be had for several hundred dollars each.

[@sr4087]

Never thought of them wearing down witb use; is it not also because people clipped around the edges of the coin; to essentially steal money; hence coins not being clipped past the outter ribbed inner circle; bc presumably it wouldnt be worth anything once clipped past that

[@mushtaquemughal3023]

I have roman gold coins

[@juliuscaesar2792]

The cuts on the coins are called "chop marks".

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

"Chop marks" is a modern term, associated to spanish silver on chinese markets

[@juliuscaesar2792]

@@ClassicalNumismatics oops 😬

[@salm8990]

@3:30 So you are telling me 1 of those coins was about 1 month Salary for a skilled laborer back then!?!? Um That ratio is currently what I’m getting payed in this American Economy. Lol I make 1 gold coin a month… I don’t know how I feel about finding this out…😕

[@ClassicalNumismatics]

Comparing the ancient economy with our modern economy is like comparing oranges and apples. Even if we can compare values of X grams of gold then and now, the price of practically everything is different now, therefore the equation which leads to its final price is different.

[@salm8990]

@@ClassicalNumismatics very true about prices. I couldn’t help but feel the correlation with that fact and my current situation.

[@petarspajic3152]

​​@@ClassicalNumismaticsyea but the labour is the same so the logic is that you get the history for free, nicht wahr, Brüder?

[@DawwWyneWyne]

My. Own old to Coin