History
During the Crisis of the Third Century, Roman coinage had been greatly debased by the numerous emperors and usurpers who minted their own coins, using base metals to reduce the underlying metallic value of coins used to pay soldiers and public officials.
Earlier in his reign, as well as in 301 around the same time as the Edict on Prices, Diocletian issued Currency Decrees, which attempted to reform the system of taxation and to stabilize the coinage.
It is difficult to know exactly how the coinage was changed, as the values and even the names of coins are often unknown or have been lost in the historical record. The Roman Empire was awash with other coins from outside of the Empire – especially in the Mediterranean. The implied coinage changeover time was at least a decade.
Although the decree was nominally successful after it was imposed, market forces led to more and more of the decree being disregarded and reinterpreted over time.
Read more about this topic: Edict On Maximum Prices
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—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)