Like coinage, bullion, financial instruments and a variety of commodities played an important role in Rome's monetary system. This book examines how the availability of such assets affected the demand for coinage and the development of the late Republican economy.

"The Power of Money is a brilliant and highly original piece of scholarship on a group of inscriptions about which much has been written and whose interpretation is crucial for our understanding of the way in which Athens ruled her empire."--Martin Ostwald, Swarthmore College.

"Modern economics tantalizes historians, promising them a set of simple verbal and mathematical formulas to explain and even retrospectively predict historical actions and choices. Colin P. Elliott challenges economic historians to rethink the way they use economic theory. Building upon the...