Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Emperor Septimius Severus and inflation

Today Roman Emperor Septimius Severus died at York in 211 during his military campaign to make Britannia's frontier safe.
He was a great soldier, but his many successes unleashed the very one enemy who contributed most significantly to the fall of Roman Empire: inflation. In fact, to finance his military campaigns
Severus for the first time uncoupled intrinsic and nominal value of coins, by halving the quantity of precious metals. 

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