Money Issues

In GURPS prices are in $ (with a dollar worth what ever the local equivalent is in the game world), but this gives an inauthentic feel to the game. Since Roman currency is well understood, we will be converting monies into Roman coins. The exchange rate is based on the following. According to GURPS rules (b. 190) 1 lbs of gold is worth $20,000 (don't expect to see much gold unless you take rich, filthy rich or multimillionaire as an advantage) and we know an aureus (we are using coinage from the time of Augustus Caesar, a small anachronism) weighed 1/40 of a pound of 99% pure gold we can figure that an aureus is worth $500, then we can use the chart from wikipedia to get the value of other coins.

Coin...............Value....................Metal..............Weight
Aureus..............$500.............................Gold........................1/40 lbs
Denarius...........$20...............................Silver.....................1/85 lbs
Quinarius..........$10...............................Silver.....................1/170 lbs
Sestertius.........$5..................................Orichalcum...........1/62 lbs
Dupondius........$2.5...............................Orichalcum...........1/124 lbs
As...................$1.25.............................Copper...................1/70 lbs
Quadrans.........$.75...............................Copper...................1/140 lbs

Romans also used unminted masses of gold and silver for exchange. For example a talent is a mass equal to an amphorae full of water. That's about 75 lbs. So a sliver talent is worth about $127,500 and a gold talent is worth $1,500,000! Tribute, ransoms and war indemnities are usually paid in talents.

Foreign coins must be changed at the money changer for the value of the metal in the coin and a 5% commission, but Roman coins are accepted almost everywhere.

Barter was still used in Roman times, especially in the hinterlands and among barbarians.

The normal starting wealth in this campaign is 50 dinarii.