Maximum price edict

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Copy (cast) of a fragment of the edict found in Aizanoi in the Pergamon Museum Berlin from the holdings of the Berlin Münzkabinett

The maximum price edict ( Latin : Edictum (Diocletiani) De Pretiis Rerum Venalium ), named after the Roman emperor Diocletian , was issued in 301 AD by the Roman tetrarchs and was valid for the entire territory of the empire. As a price control law, it set maximum prices for a large number of products and services, the excess of which could be punished with the death penalty in the ultima ratio .

Fragment of the maximum price edict in Greek

General

The most important summary of all fragments published so far comes from Siegfried Lauffer , who expanded and replaced Theodor Mommsen's with the text collection that has not yet been completed . In this respect, it is a still provisional stone collection. The fragments come mainly from Abruzzo ( Pettorano ), western Greece ( Achaia ) and Asia Minor . The original text version is the one in Latin. The few Greek translations are only shown in fragments from Achaia, bilingual versions of the text are not proven.

The edict is structured in such a way that a preface explains the reasons and the purpose of the measure. This is followed by a reference to the attached tariff table (attached) for the individual price-limited products and services as well as the sanctions in the event of non-compliance. No binding research results are available to date on the type and extent of the placement of the inscriptions in columns in generally accessible places and the degree of dissemination of the edict in the individual provinces. Since the edict, for example, in Lactantius' writing De mortibus persecutorum is attested literary (Of the deaths of the persecutors), it is assumed that it was of considerable importance.

Background and aftermath

During the imperial crisis , which had driven the economic decline of the Roman Empire , numerous emperors and usurpers had increasingly minted coins. This had increased inflation significantly. Diocletian responded by doubling the nominal value of the existing silver currency. So that the tax authorities would not be faced with halving their tax revenues ( Capitatio-Iugatio ), it was stipulated that the payment obligations had to be paid with the same coins at double their value before the date of the increase in value. This measure of doubling the nominal value should protect the buyer in inflationary times. Diocletian not only pursued the shortage of the silver values ​​in circulation, he also wanted to make the sales of goods controllable through state price control. Price control became a core part of the maximum price edict, itself part of the Diocletian coin reform. In order to stabilize the currency, it was devalued .

The prices are given in the edict as denarii communes (invoice denarii ), but they did not correspond to the denarii of the early imperial period . The follis introduced in 294 was established on September 1, 301 with 25 denarii communes .

Diocletian imposed binding maximum prices for more than a thousand products. In addition, maximum wages were set for services. Since the majority of the population received the lowest daily wages, while the prices for handicrafts were very high, the poorer population in particular suffered from the edict, the shepherds and the agricultural workers. Research had therefore often assumed that the edict had failed to have the desired effect and ultimately had to fail. The prices were completely excessive and the sellers were tempted to switch to moneyless exchange transactions. In this way, the ordered reprisals could have been circumvented and the content of the edict was undermined. There was no formal reaction to this, it was never overridden. Even Theodor Mommsen referred to an indisputable economic nature of the measure. Recent research has turned more to the aspect of the effects of the measures on currency stabilization and acknowledges the results achieved. It could also be shown that the edict lasted longer and was more effective than it appeared on the basis of literary evidence. The fixed price policy supported by the army has therefore helped to stabilize production, tax revenue and, above all, even the class professional order.

Economic policy guidelines existed even before Diocletian. The economic and historical significance of the price edict is primarily due to the fact that it is the most comprehensive list of goods and prices in the ancient world, which also testifies to the radical efforts to stabilize the currency after the severe crisis had severely affected the economy and society.

According to the maximum price edict, an accumulation of measures for the political stabilization of prices for commercial products and services can be determined. Finally, Justinian also took up the development and fixed the classic concept of the “just price” ( iustum pretium ) in his later so-called Corpus iuris civilis , which found its way into Western thought.

expenditure

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to its legal form it was an edictum ad provinciales after Diocletian had carried out fundamental administrative reforms in the Roman regional structure .
  2. ↑ Lactanz , De mortibus persecutorum , 7.6 f.
  3. ↑ Karl Strobel (as author): Monetary and monetary history of the Imperium Romanum as reflected in the development of the 3rd century AD - Economic history in the conflict between metallism and nominalism In: Karl Strobel (ed.): Die Ökonomie des Imperium Romanum: Structures, models and evaluations in the field of tension between modernism and neoprimitivism , St. Katharinen 2002, ISBN 3-89590-135-0 . Pp. 115-120 (119 f.).
  4. ^ Herbert Hausmaninger , Walter Selb : Roman private law. Böhlau, Vienna 1981 (9th edition 2001), ISBN 3-205-07171-9 , pp. 14 ff, 231.
  5. ↑ Theodor Mommsen , CIL III, p. 801 ff.
  6. ↑ Beginning with Karl Bücher : Die Diokletianische Taxordnung von 301 , in: Zeitschrift für die Allgemeine Staatswissenschaft / Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 50, 1894, pp. 189 ff. And 672 ff .; on behalf of all: Siegfried Lauffer Diocletian's price edict. de Gruyter, Berlin 1971 (= texts and commentaries. An ancient science series. ), Olof Gigon , Felix Heinimann , Otto Luschnat (eds.), Volume 5, Introduction p. 5 Rnr. 17 (reference to the authorship).
  7. ^ Ivo Pfaff : On the legal protection of the economically weaker in the Roman imperial legislation , originally: Felber, Weimar 1897, reprint of the edition from 1897, Verlag Hansebooks 2017, ISBN 978-3-74363-4916 , p. 56 ff.
  8. ↑ Michael Rostovtzeff : Society and Economy in the Roman Empire , Leipzig: Source and Meyer 1931, reprint Aachen: Scientia Verlag 1985, II p. 119 ff.
  9. ^ Paul Oertmann : Die Volkswirtschaftslehre des Corpus iuris civilis (1891), p. 39 ff. ( Online ); Felix Genzmer : in Rabel's magazine for foreign and international private law , special issue 3, 1937, p. 25 ff and p. 48 ff.