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29-502: The meaning of Decumates is lost and has been the subject of much contention. According to the English Classicist Michael Grant , the word probably refers to an ancient Celtic term indicating the political division of the area into "ten cantons." Another theory is that the term implies that a tithe was paid by residents living in this country. According to Tacitus, the region was originally populated by

58-407: A scarce good. Many materials have been used to form money, from naturally scarce precious metals and cowry shells through cigarettes to entirely artificial money, called fiat money , such as banknotes . Many complementary currencies use time as a unit of measure, using mutual credit accounting that keeps the balance of money intact. Modern money (along with most ancient money) is essentially

87-572: A standard of the work. Having studied and held a number of academic posts in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, he retired early to devote himself fully to writing. He once described himself as "one of the very few freelancers in the field of ancient history: a rare phenomenon". As a populariser, his hallmarks were his prolific output and his unwillingness to oversimplify or talk down to his readership. He published over 70 works. Grant

116-436: A token – an abstraction. Paper currency is perhaps the most common type of contemporary physical money. However, goods such as gold or silver retain many of the essential properties of money, such as price fluctuation and limited supply, although these goods are not controlled by one single authority. Coin collecting may have possibly existed in ancient times. Augustus gave "coins of every device, including old pieces of

145-514: A two-year (1956–58) leave of absence he also served as vice-chancellor (president) of the University of Khartoum – upon his departure, he turned the university over to the newly independent Sudanese government. He was then vice-chancellor of Queen's University of Belfast (1959–66), after which he pursued a career as a full-time writer. According to his obituary in The Times , he was "one of

174-586: Is related to numismatics proper (concerned with coins which have been legal tender ), and many coin collectors are also exonumists. Notaphily is the study of paper money or banknotes. It is believed that people have been collecting paper money for as long as it has been in use. However, people only started collecting paper money systematically in Germany in the 1920s, particularly the Serienscheine (Series notes) Notgeld . The turning point occurred in

203-689: The Celtic tribe of the Helvetii , but soon Germanic and Gaulish settlers arrived. Tacitus writes that: I should not reckon among the Germanic tribes the cultivators of the tithe-lands [agri decimates], although they are settled on the further side of the Rhine and Danube. Reckless adventurers from Gaul, emboldened by want, occupied this land of questionable ownership. After a while, our frontier having been advanced, and our military positions pushed forward, it

232-545: The Kyrgyz people used horses as the principal currency unit, and gave small change in lambskins ; the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horses are not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as cowry shells , precious metals , cocoa beans , large stones , and gems . First attested in English in 1829, the word numismatics comes from the adjective numismatic , meaning ' of coins ' . It

261-487: The 1970s when notaphily was established as a separate area by collectors. At the same time, some developed countries such as the United States , Germany , and France began publishing their respective national catalogs of paper money, which represented major points of reference literature. Scripophily is the study and collection of companies' shares and bonds certificates. It is an area of collecting due to both

290-722: The 19th century. The Royal Numismatic Society was founded in 1836 and immediately began publishing the journal that became the Numismatic Chronicle . The American Numismatic Society was founded in 1858 and began publishing the American Journal of Numismatics in 1866. In 1931 the British Academy launched the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum publishing collections of Ancient Greek coinage . The first volume of Sylloge of Coins of

319-650: The Agri Decumates region until the mid-3rd century, when the emperor Gallienus (259–260) evacuated it before the invading Alemanni and the secession of much of the Western Roman Empire under the "usurper and ruler" Postumus . The Emperor Aurelian (AD 270–275) may have had the region briefly reoccupied during the Roman resurgence of the late 3rd century under the so-called "military" emperors. Even if this did occur, re-establishment of Roman rule

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348-619: The British Isles was published in 1958. In the 20th century, coins gained recognition as archaeological objects, and scholars such as Guido Bruck of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna realized their value in providing a temporal context and the difficulty that curators faced when identifying worn coins using classical literature. After World War II in Germany, a project, Fundmünzen der Antike (Coin finds of

377-619: The Classical Period) was launched to register every coin found within Germany. This idea found successors in many countries. In the United States, the US Mint established a coin cabinet in 1838 when chief coiner Adam Eckfeldt donated his personal collection. William E. Du Bois' Pledges of History... (1846) describes the cabinet. C. Wyllys Betts ' American colonial history illustrated by contemporary medals (1894) set

406-506: The Great , Cleopatra , Nero , Jesus , St. Peter and St. Paul . As early as the 1950s, Grant's publishing success was somewhat controversial within the classicist community. According to The Times : Grant's approach to classical history was beginning to divide critics. Numismatists felt that his academic work was beyond reproach, but some academics balked at his attempt to condense a survey of Roman literature into 300 pages, and felt (in

435-543: The coins they study. Varieties, mint-made errors , the results of progressive die wear, mintage figures, and even the sociopolitical context of coin mintings are also matters of interest. Exonumia (UK English: Paranumismatica) is the study of coin -like objects such as token coins and medals , and other items used in place of legal currency or for commemoration. This includes elongated coins , encased coins, souvenir medallions, tags, badges, counter-stamped coins, wooden nickels , credit cards , and other similar items. It

464-402: The discipline also includes the broader study of money and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange goods . The earliest forms of money used by people are categorised by collectors as "odd and curious", but the use of other goods in barter exchange is excluded, even where used as a circulating currency (e.g., cigarettes or instant noodles in prison). As an example,

493-566: The early Renaissance ancient coins were collected by European royalty and nobility. Collectors of coins were Pope Boniface VIII , Emperor Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV of France, Ferdinand I, Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg who started the Berlin coin cabinet and Henry IV of France to name a few. Numismatics is called the "Hobby of Kings", due to its most esteemed founders. Professional societies organised in

522-473: The few classical historians to win respect from [both] academics and a lay readership". Immensely prolific, he wrote and edited more than 70 books of nonfiction and translation, covering topics from Roman coinage and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius to the Gospels . He produced general surveys of ancient Greek, Roman and Israelite history as well as biographies of important figures such as Julius Caesar , Herod

551-698: The former Roman inhabitants of the Agri Decumates were to be found from the later 3rd to the 5th centuries in the Decem Pagi —also "ten cantons"—having transferred west of the Rhine, to the region between the Rhine and the Saar , between Mainz and Metz . Michael Grant (author) Michael Grant CBE (21 November 1914 – 4 October 2004) was an English classicist , numismatist , and author of numerous books on ancient history. His 1956 translation of Tacitus 's Annals of Imperial Rome remains

580-513: The groundwork for the study of American historical medals. Helen Wang 's "A short history of Chinese numismatics in European languages" (2012–2013) gives an outline history of Western countries' understanding of Chinese numismatics. Lyce Jankowski 's Les amis des monnaies is an in-depth study of Chinese numismatics in China in the 19th century. Modern numismatics is the study of the coins of

609-413: The kings and foreign money" as Saturnalia gifts. Petrarch , who wrote in a letter that he was often approached by vine diggers with old coins asking him to buy or to identify the ruler, is credited as the first Renaissance collector. Petrarch presented a collection of Roman coins to Emperor Charles IV in 1355. The first book on coins was De Asse et Partibus (1514) by Guillaume Budé . During

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638-416: The mid-17th century onward, the period of machine-struck coins. Their study serves more the need of collectors than historians, and it is more often successfully pursued by amateur aficionados than by professional scholars. The focus of modern numismatics frequently lies in the research of production and use of money in historical contexts using mint or other records in order to determine the relative rarity of

667-606: The next decade he wrote four books on Roman coinage ; his view was that the tension between the eccentricity of the Roman emperors and the traditionalism of the Roman mint made coins (used as both propaganda and currency) a unique social record. During World War II , Grant served for a year as an intelligence officer in London after which he was assigned (1940) as the UK's first British Council representative in Turkey. In this capacity he

696-705: The words of one reviewer) that "even the most learned and gifted of historians should observe a speed-limit". The academics would keep cavilling, but the public kept buying. From 1966 until his death, Grant lived with his wife in Gattaiola , a village near Lucca in Tuscany. His autobiography, My First Eighty Years , appeared in 1994. Numismatics Numismatics is the study or collection of currency , including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists , are often characterized as students or collectors of coins , but

725-457: Was born in London, the son of Col. Maurice Grant who served in the Boer War and later wrote part of its official history. Young Grant attended Harrow School and read classics (1933–37) at Trinity College, Cambridge . His speciality was academic numismatics . His research fellowship thesis later became his first published book – From Imperium to Auctoritas (1946), on Roman bronze coins. Over

754-678: Was borrowed in 1792 from French numismatique , itself a derivation from Late Latin numismatis , genitive of numisma , a variant of nomisma meaning ' coin ' . Nomisma is a latinisation of the Greek νόμισμα ( nomisma ) which means ' current coin/custom ' , which derives from νομίζειν ( nomizein ) ' to hold or own as a custom or usage, to use customarily ' , in turn from νόμος ( nomos ) ' usage, custom ' , ultimately from νέμειν ( nemein ) ' to dispense, divide, assign, keep, hold ' . Throughout its history, money itself has been made to be

783-641: Was brief. After the Emperor Probus ' death (282), the region was finally given up and the Alemanni took control. Germanic peoples have continuously inhabited the region since then. However, Roman settlements were not immediately abandoned. There is evidence the Roman way of life continued well into the 5th century, much as Roman patterns continued in neighboring Gaul long after the Western Roman Empire's collapse. J. G. F. Hind has suggested

812-621: Was instrumental in getting his friend, the eminent historian Steven Runciman , his position at Istanbul University . While in Turkey, he also married Anne-Sophie Beskow (they had two sons). At war's end, the couple returned to the UK with Grant's collection of almost 700 Roman coins (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge). After a brief return to Cambridge, Grant applied for the vacant chair of Humanity (Latin) at Edinburgh University , which he held from 1948 until 1959. During

841-739: Was regarded as a remote nook of our empire and a part of a Roman province. Under the Flavian and later emperors, Romans took control and settled the region. They built a road network for military communications and movements, and improved protection from invading tribes using the region to penetrate into Roman Gaul . Frontier fortifications ( limes ) were constructed along a line running Rheinbrohl—Arnsburg—Inheiden—Schierenhof—Gunzenhausen—Pförring ( Limes Germanicus ). The larger Roman settlements were Sumolecenna ( Rottenburg am Neckar ), Civitas Aurelia Aquensis ( Baden-Baden ), Lopodunum ( Ladenburg ) and Arae Flaviae ( Rottweil ). Romans controlled

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