Egyptian silver drachma accounting — Ptolemaic and Roman traditions
- Dates in use
- Introduction and ending not established
- Ancestry branch
- Attic drachma
Its place in the family
All ancestors and descendants ↗Egyptian silver drachma accounting
This currencyTrace its ancestry backward
Egyptian silver drachma accounting
Attic drachma accounting
Earlier ancestry is not established here.
The story
Egypt’s integration into denarius accounting can be represented as a qualified local absorption beginning in 296, with older expressions continuing into the fourth century. It is not the origin of Roman currency. Local integration in Egypt; the date range combines reform and later accounting attestation, not a dated one-off conversion. The old scale continued; no claim that all Greek currencies generated Rome’s currency. [1]
A 197 AD papyrus equates a denarius fine to Egyptian drachmas, with an additional agio; this attests local accounting, not the creation of either unit. [2]
P.Oxy.12.1431, assigned to early 351, explicitly equates 225 myriads of denarii with 1,500 talents in a rug expenditure. [3]
Replacement by an existing currency
This conversion belongs to the history of the retiring unit. It does not make that unit an ancestor of the currency adopted.
- Roman as–denarius–sestertius accounting · Evidence period: AD 296–AD 351 Conversion terms and evidence ↗
Turning points
The 259 BC Revenue Laws prescribe oil-import duties of 12 drachmas per metretes…
The 259 BC Revenue Laws prescribe oil-import duties of 12 drachmas per metretes and prohibited-import penalties of 100. This is account evidence; its association with the retained Egyptian continuity is qualified. [4]
BGU XIV2376 records a 3,080-silver-drachma debt in 35 BC separately from…
BGU XIV2376 records a 3,080-silver-drachma debt in 35 BC separately from bronze-talent damages. The parallel accounts are retained as distinct units. [5]
O.Mich
O.Mich. IV 1114 securely dates a silver-standard tax payment to 20 BC. [6]
Sources and evidence
- Roger S. Bagnall · Currency and Inflation in Fourth Century Egypt (BASP Supplements 5, 1985); Roger S. Bagnall and Gilles Bransbourg · The Constantian Monetary Revolution, ISAW Papers 14 (2019)
- Fritz Mitthof, Chiron 39 (2009), pp. 193–208 · Das Wertverhältnis des alexandrinischen Billon-Tetradrachmons zur Reichswährung unter Augustus und Tiberius
- Roger S. Bagnall and Gilles Bransbourg · The Constantian Monetary Revolution, ISAW Papers 14 (2019)
- Brian P. Muhs · The Ancient Egyptian Economy (2016), chapter 7
- Andrew Monson · Receipts for sitônion, syntaxis, and epistatikon from Karanis: Evidence for Fiscal Reform in Augustan Egypt? ZPE 191 (2014), 207–230
- Andrew Monson · Receipts for sitônion, syntaxis, and epistatikon from Karanis: Evidence for Fiscal Reform in Augustan Egypt? ZPE 191 (2014), 207–230
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Full claims, evidence coverage, corrections and earlier interpretations are kept separately.
Cite this page
“Egyptian silver drachma accounting — Ptolemaic and Roman traditions.” The Family Tree of Money. © Field Technologies, Inc. Updated 2026-10-13; data version v44. https://familytreeofmoney.org/currency/CUR-V25-EGYPT-DRACHMA.html