The Money

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
>
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> > > > ****GK: There seems to be some confusion about Burebista's
> > > > regnal
> > > > dates and his expansionism. Some say he started to rule in 82,
> > > > others in 70, still others in 60. I see you base your view on
> > > > your understanding of Jordanes' "when Sulla ruled the Romans".
> > >
> > > Yes. The whole quote is:
> > > http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/Goths/Goths1.htm
> > > 'Dehinc, regnante Gothis Burebista, Decaeneus venit in Gothiam,
> > > quo tempore Romanorum Sulla potitus est principatu. Quem
> > > Decaeneum suscipiens, Burebistas dedit ei paene regiam
> > > potestatem; cujus consilio Gothi Germanorum terras, quas nunc
> > > Franci obtinent, populati sunt.'
> > >
> > > "Then when Burebistas was king of the Goths, Decaeneus came to
> > > Gothia at the time when Sulla ruled the Romans [ca. 82-79 B.C.].
> > > Burebistas received Decaeneus and gave him almost royal power.
> > > It was by his advice the Goths ravaged the lands of the Germans,
> > > which the Franks now possess."
> > >
> > > I imagined that the expulsion of the Bastarnae was the direct
> > > result of a war initiated by the Bastarnae as part of a
> > > harassment policy or a direct attack by Mithridates and his
> > > allies, but what Jordanes actually says is that the Burebista's
> > > Goths/Getae initiated the a war against the 'Germans' on the
> > > advice of Decineus. In order for it to make sense for Burebista
> > > to start on such a potentially catastrophic business on the
> > > advice of a single man, Decineus would have needed a number of
> > > years to prove the soundness of his advice, so you're probably
> > > right that 90/89 BCE is too early.
> > >
> > > > I don't find this too reliable, but don't particularly care
> > > > about the regnal start as such. As for the expansionism, I
> > > > don't see Burebista starting his empire-building when
> > > > Mithradates was still flexing his muscles. An expulsion of the
> > > > Bastarnians from Moldavia before 63 BCE is about as highly
> > > > improbable as anything else in world history. But from about
> > > > 60 BCE he (Burebista) could certainly do some
> > > > territorial collecting. The destruction of Olbia BTW is
> > > > generally put at ca. 50 BCE. What are your arguments for
> > > > earlier dates?*****
> > >
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66827
> > > 'In considering then the earliest hoards of Republican coins
> > > from Dacia, we are dealing with hoards composed for the most
> > > part of a block of common coins of the late second century B.C.
> > > and of the 80s B.C., with normally an isolated terminal coin or
> > > scatter of coins of the 70s and 60s B.C.; the vast majority of
> > > these hoards are not now known in anything like their entirety.
> > > Even were it not true that the 70s and 6os B.C. are for the most
> > > part a period of small issues from the Roman mint, it would
> > > clearly be extremely hazardous to argue that the hoards were
> > > deposited immediately after the date of the latest coin in them.
> > > Even if the hoards were Italian, all we could say is that the
> > > group as a whole is likely to have been deposited by the mid or
> > > late 60s B.C.26 In the case of Dacia, we perhaps have a timelag
> > > for travel to reckon with as well.27
> > >
> > > If we may with all due caution posit a beginning to the massive
> > > import of Republican denarii into the lower Danube basin from
> > > the mid or late 60s B.C. onwards, an anomalous and unique
> > > phenomenon, as I have already remarked, as well as a sudden one,
> > > I cannot think of any satisfactory explanation except in terms
> > > of the slave trade, forced in the immediate aftermath of the
> > > victorious campaigns of Cn. Pompeius against the pirates in 67
> > > B.C. to find an alternative source of supply for Rome and Italy
> > > outside the Greco-Macedonian Mediterranean world. The problem
> > > was no doubt exacerbated by the fact that not only did 67 B.C.
> > > see a virtual end to the kidnapping and slave-raiding organized
> > > by the pirates, but 63 B.C. saw the inclusion within the Roman
> > > empire of vast territories which thereby theoretically ceased to
> > > be available as sources for the supply of slaves. Caesar's
> > > razzias in Gaul (see p. 122) did not begin until 58 B.C. Italy
> > > had also of course in any case suffered severe losses of slave
> > > manpower in the revolt of Spartacus.
> > > ...
> > >
> > > 26 The general methodological point is made quite correctly by
> > > M. Babeş, Dacia XIX, 1975, 132-3 and 139 n. 61, against the
> > > argument of M. Chiţescu, ibid., 249, linking the burial of the
> > > hoards with the growth of the state of Burebista.
> > >
> > > 27 Assertions to the contrary without supporting evidence are
> > > valueless, as by M. Chiţescu, Dacia XVIII, 1974, I53; Stud.
> > > Cerc. Num. VI, 1975, 55; note the Stobi hoard, closing in the
> > > mid-120s B.C., probably buried in 119 B.C. (Stobi Studies i,
> > > I).'
> > >
> > >
> > > Ie. a massive trade in slaves in the period 67 - 63 BCE.
> >
> > Crawford thinks the collapse of the Mithridates empire exacerbated
> > the dearth of slaves with the inclusion within the Roman empire
> > of vast territories which thereby theoretically ceased to be
> > available as sources for the supply of slaves; I think the
> > opposite was the case, since that meant renewed access for the
> > Romans to the large slave market in
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panticapaeon
> > But anyway, I don't think pirates would have been a source of
> > slaves reliable enough that the Rome could have used them as an
> > only source at any time.
> >
> > > Burebista
> > > might have started with his own subjects, until Decineus pointed
> > > out to him that harvesting the neighbors might be better for the
> > > stability of his regime?
> >
> > I have to account for the large number of Germanic slaves (at
> > least 30,000 under Crixus + 12,300 under Gannicus and Castus) in
> > the
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Servile_War , (73-71 BCE).
> > Since the Romans had had no war with Germani in the preceding
> > time, these are most likely POWs from Burebista's victorious
> > campaigns against the Germani, paid for by the coin hoards
> > Crawford mentions. In other words, I would place Burebista's
> > victory over Bastarnae in the period 73-72 BCE. And not only over
> > the Bastarnae, but also the Western Sarmatian alliance, see
> > http://www.kroraina.com/sarm/jh/jh1_7.html
> > The reason Harmatta places the end of the alliance so late as in
> > 61 BCE seems to be the same as the reason given for placing the
> > rise of Burebista's empire to after 63 BCE, the year of
> > Mithridates' death. But Mithridates was in trouble from the onset
> > of the
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Mithridatic_War ;
> > it is absolutely not a given that he was able to defend his
> > possessions on the Northwestern coast of the Black Sea; the Greek
> > cities there were taken by
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Terentius_Varro_Lucullus
> > in the mid 70s BCE, and according to
> > Konrat Ziegler,
> > Die Herkunft des Spartacus
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66474
> > Spartacus himself was taken prisoner in those parts by
> >

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appius_Claudius_Pulcher_(consul_54_BC)

> > in 76 BCE.
> >
> > In conclusion, I think it's safe to say the Burebista's
> > elimination of both the Bastarnae and the Western Sarmatian
> > Alliance took place in the mid 70's BCE.
>
>
> Tadaa!
>
> Kris Lockyear
> Aspects of Roman Republican coins found in late Iron Age Dacia
> June 16, 2007
> http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/4832/1/4832.pdf
>
> '4 Conclusions
> We have been able to answer two of the basic, but vital, questions
> regarding Roman Republican denarii in Iron Age Dacia. Firstly, the
> principal period of import was around about 75-65 bc, with perhaps a
> secondary peak during the late 40s bc although this is more difficult
> to be certain about because of the increased levels of coin
> production within the Roman state at that time. Secondly, we can see
> that copying of denarii seems to have been remarkably prevalent and
> widespread. The challenge now is to situate these observations
> within a wide-ranging reinterpretation of Dacian society prior to
> the Trajanic invasions.'

The question is: where did that money come from?

Plutarch: Life of Lucullus, 20
'Lucullus now turned his attention to the cities in Asia [71â€`70 B.C.], in order that, while he was at leisure from military enterprises, he might do something for the furtherance of justice and law. Through long lack of these, unspeakable and incredible misfortunes were rife in the province. Its people were plundered and reduced to slavery by the tax-gatherers and money-lenders. Families were forced to sell their comely sons and virgin daughters, and cities their votive offerings, pictures, and sacred statues. At last men had to surrender to their creditors and serve them as slaves, but what preceded this was far worse,â€" tortures of rope, barrier, and horse; standing under the open sky in the blazing sun of summer, and in winter, being thrust into mud or ice. Slavery seemed, by comparison, to be disburdenment and peace. Such were the evils which Lucullus found in the cities, and in a short time he freed the oppressed from all of them.

In the first place, he ordered that the monthly rate of interest should be reckoned at one per cent, and no more; in the second place, he cut off all interest that exceeded the principal; third, and most important of all, he ordained that the lender should receive not more than the fourth part of his debtor's income, and any lender who added interest to principal was deprived of the whole. Thus, in less than four years' time, the debts were all paid, and the properties restored to their owners unencumbered. This public debt had its origin in the twenty thousand talents which Sulla had laid upon Asia as a contribution, and twice this amount had been paid back to the money-lenders. Yet now, by reckoning usurious interest, they had brought the total debt up to a hundred and twenty thousand talents. These men, accordingly, considered themselves outraged, and raised a clamour against Lucullus at Rome. They also bribed some of the tribunes to proceed against him, being men of great influence, who had got many of the active politicians into their debt. Lucullus, however, was not only beloved by the peoples whom he had benefited, nay, other provinces also longed to have him set over them, and felicitated those whose good fortune it was to have such a governor.'


This would have happened in 73-70 BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucullus#The_Eastern_Wars.2C_73-67_B.C.
http://tinyurl.com/6jo5v6b

As mentioned, the debt was a result of the terms imposed on the Asian cities in response to the murders of 80,000 Roman citizens during the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Vespers
They were imposed by Sulla in 85 BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Mithridatic_War#The_Lucullan_mission

In other words, in that period, 85-71 BCE, Roman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicani ,
tax farmers, would have had vast sums at their disposal, partly as ready money, but also various personal belongings, some of them of noble metals which could be minted. Now, Roman imported objects in Germania of the early Roman age are dated by their co-occurrence in Pompeii to be 'early imperial', ie appr 0-50 CE, assuming they were only a few years old by the time of the Vesuvius catastrophe. But a remark in Pliny's Naturalis Historia (which I can't locate now) tells us that the quality of silver work in his time had become so low that people were beginning to collect antiques. This matches that Shchukin thinks that the Germanic archaeological period should be adjusted 'downward' 50 years because a crucial assumption that the oppidum Manching was destroyed by the Romans does not hold. It is therefore possible that the metal objects of Pompeii were part of the tax extracted by publicani from the Asian cities in the years 85-72 BCE (so much more as they seem stylistically to belong in those Asian cities, and the area around the bay of Naples was where Roman upper class built to display their riches), and that they came to early Germanic graves (which should then be dated to mid-1st century BCE) by way of those pirates who made off with Spartacus' plunder in 72 BCE.


Torsten