Page 52 - Pompeii n. 12 - The world of money at Pompeii

English version

The complex located along Via dell'Abbondanza, made up of a shop, back
room and adjoining house, occupies the north-east corner of the eighth
insula; the owners were most likely L. Vetutius Placidus and his partner
Ascula, names recorded several times on the inscriptions of the house and,
in particular, that of Vetutius, was copied on lots of electoral programmes and
on wine amphoras found inside.
The thermopolium, one of the best preserved and representative of the
trading concerns dedicated to food service that were spread along the main
roads of Pompeii, preserves, in addition to the lararium aedicule with the
depiction of Mercury, Dionysus and the serpents, the sales counter with the
upper surface covered in multi-coloured marble chips and tiles and complete
with dolia set inside the wall structure. In one of these an extremely
interesting storage place was found made up of 1285 bronze coins of a value
of around 585 sestertii, perhaps the shop's takings of several days.
Again from the same thermopolium, in addition to some sporadic finds
brought to light during the first stage of the archaeological survey of 1912 and
other discoveries made in different places to the house or the back room,
there are other small interesting groups of coins, again in bronze found both
in the other dolia and on the sales counter that, not dissimilar in size to those
found in other food service establishments of the same type, most likely
represent the daily takings.
The huge hoard composed entirely of coins of the time allows us to make
some observations, even if only partially, on the circulation of the bronze coin
in Pompeii in AD 79: the most popular coin seems to have been the as
(63.3% of the total), the series attested by a greater number of examples are
those of the Flavian era (47.59%), chronologically closer to the date of the
eruption, following by issues of the Julio-Claudians (42.09%) and those of
Galba (7.58%). Present, even if only in a very small percentage, were both
the most ancient coins, issued by Greek Mints (0.14%) and Republican
issues (1.59%).

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