The three samples of Brettian coins date between 218–214 BCE and 216–211 BCE, respectively (Rutter 2001). Due to their dating before the conflicts with Rome, these coins have been sampled to get an insight into earlier Carthaginian coin production. The two coins issued by Carthage were minted in the western part of Sicily and date to the 4 th century BCE (Jenkins 1974). Each of these minting authorities represents one of the major parties involved in the struggle for hegemony in the 4 th to 2 nd centuries BCE Western Mediterranean region. For comparative purposes, we selected coinage issued by Carthage, the tribal group of the Brettii in southwest Italy and the Greek colony of Emporion in northeast Spain (Table 1, Figure 1). We studied 70 coins issued by Rome and dated between 310–300 and 101 BCE (Crawford 1974 Rutter 2001). Based on analytical data of a suite of silver coinage from this turbulent and defining timespan, we address the following questions: How do political conflicts and potential metal shortages influence the fineness of the coins? How do the bullion sources change in this period with Rome successively rising to the predominant power in Italy, and later, large parts of the Mediterranean region? Materials and methods Investigated samples Bowman and Wilson 2009), this study aims to empirically retrace the background of Rome's rise to power. While the historical narrative is well known and Rome's overall economic situation has been investigated from a multitude of perspectives (e.g. The denarius as the dominant silver coin and a corresponding set of fiduciary bronze coins were introduced in 211 BCE during the Second Punic War, after the previous monetary system was on the brink of collapse (Crawford 1985).
Rome issued its first silver coinage during a period in which it consolidated its hegemony in central Italy after defeating the Etruscans and the Samnite tribes. This process is closely intertwined with its financial evolution. Within this period, the emerging regional power Rome rose to become the virtually uncontested ruler of the Western Mediterranean, a position which it kept for centuries.
until the beginning of the Social War and Civil Wars). In this study, we consider a timespan ranging from the first issues of Roman silver coinage in the late 4 th century BCE up until the early 1 st century BCE (i.e.
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