INTRODUCTION

Once a system of regional mints is established at the end of the third century, mint-marks immediately show that coin tended to remain where it was produced. In general the coin commonest in Italy was minted in Italy, the coin commonest in Egypt was minted in Egypt, and so on. In important regions without mints, such as Spain, coin predominantly came from the closest neighbouring areas. There was also supplementation from neighbouring mints if production was insufficient for local needs, as it probably was in Britain and Africa. In small amounts, coin could certainly travel from one end of the empire to the other. But the dominant circulation pattern in this explicit evidence is highly localised.

Evidence before the Late Empire is inexplicit, since there are no local mint-marks on the main coinage. It has even been assumed that under the Principate money-flows were homogeneous and free from localised patterns. But that is dangerously close to an argument from silence, and it has to suppose that radical change in circulation patterns took place between early and Late Empire. In the earlier period, regional patterning is naturally more difficult to study, and co-ordinated attempts to do so are rare. But material for analysis exists even here, and what it suggests about natural patterns of circulation is as localised as in the later period. Thus the case for significant long-term change in the motor patterns of Roman coin-circulation under the Empire remains uncertain.