Abstract:

Only in Aphrodisias both imperial regulations of 301, the Maximum Price Edict and the Edicts of Currency Revaluation, were published together documenting also the coherence of both issues of imperial economic and financial policy. The tetrarchic revaluation of the circulating coins gives us the best evidence for the manipulation of nominal currency values in the Roman Empire and in Antiquity. Both regulations were key documents for our understanding of the monetary policy in the period leading into the history of economy and currency in Late Antiquity. After the fatal experiences with the revalorizations since Aurelian’s value manipulation, this time the price edict should impose price stability by law for the following doubling of the nominal values of all coins below the aureus and thus overstressing of their fiduciary nature. The need of coins for the public expenditures should be halved. A new edition of this so important text of the currency regulation including the substantial new fragments found in 1990 is not yet published. New re­constructions of several parts of the text are proposed in the article.

Keywords: