When were roman coins discovered?

Answer 1

Roman coins are being discovered almost daily, many of them in Britain.

The Romans started using coins quite late, in the 3rd century BC, even though the Greek cities of southern Italy had been circulating coins for quite a long time and the Romans were aware of them. The first coins in Italy were the aes grave (heavy bronze), coins of heavy cast bronze, which begun to be used in central Italy in the 4th century BC in central Italy. It seems that their issue in Rome started in the second half of this century. These coins and the bars which preceded them (see below) were made of bronze, which is a metal which was easily found in Italy. It was not until the Punic wars, when they started trading beyond Italy that the Romans adopted Greek practices in coinage and introduced coins made of silver, which had to be imported into Italy. Silver then became the bullion coin. Brass was also introduced for coins of lower value.

Prior to the introduction of coins, the Romans used the aes signatum (stamped bronze) which were cast bars of bronze which were in use in central Italy. It is thought that their use started in the 5th century BC. The earliest of these bars were cast in Etruria, Umbra and Emilia (in northern Italy) and did not have a set weight standard. Their weight varied from 600 grams to 2.5 kilos (1 pound 5 oz. to 5 pounds 8 oz.). They did not have a face value and were used to barter goods by the weight of the bars. The Romans introduced a standard weight for official state issues. These were assigned a given face value. They measured 16 x 9 centimetres (6.3 x 3.5 inches) and weighed 1.5 to 1.6 kilos (3 pounds 5 oz. to 1 pound 8 oz.). There were also smaller bars with lower values. There were also bars which were not state issue and could be made by anyone who had a foundry and were still used to barter by their weight.