Thread

After the victory over the Dacians, according to the historian Dio Cassius and Criton, Emperor Trajan’s personal physician, the Roman legions brought back from Dacia, as war booty, no less than 166 tons of gold and 331 tons of silver. Today, the value of that gold alone would amount to nearly 10 billion euros, calculating the price of a gram of gold at an average of 60 euros, or 300 lei. Initially, the impact of the plundered Dacian gold replenished the imperial treasury. Moreover, the emperor took unprecedented measures. For instance, he organized 123 days of games and battles, involving no fewer than 10,000 gladiators, canceled all debts, and exempted all taxpayers from state taxes for one year. Additionally, he gifted each Roman head of household 650 denarii, an amount equivalent to the price of several able-bodied slaves. He also funded numerous monuments and buildings and drained the marshes around the capital of the empire. Furthermore, he moved an entire hill to make way for the space where he later erected the famous Trajan’s Column. However, the wealth of precious metal soon revealed its adverse effects, leading to the first collapse in the price of gold in human history. Its value dropped by nearly a tenth across the vast Roman Empire. The situation became so severe that, in 107 AD, Trajan was forced to implement a monetary reform, devaluing gold and silver coins. At the same time, the Roman prefect of Egypt adjusted the exchange rate between the two metals. Thus, nearly 2,000 years ago, the Dacian gold plundered by the Romans, in a way, took its revenge on its plunderers, triggering the first form of financial crisis in history.