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Anyone know of any sources that give an estimated number to the amount of gold mined while Dacia was under Roman occupation? The only author I can find who gives a number is Ioana Oltean in her Dacia: Landscape, colonization, and romanization, who cites Yorram Wollman's article from 1996 in saying that over the course of 165 years of Roman occupation, only 1.3 tons of gold was taken from the mines... this seems a bit low to have been worthwhile
One hundred sixty-five years and only 1.3 tonnes? Okay...if the numbers you read are correct, then either the author had a bad day when he or she wrote that page, or the Romans really don't know how to mine (who wouldn't doubt this?). That value is little. Here's what I'm thinking. Did the Romans have a primitive version of the IRS? and if so, perhaps they under-reported their earnings from the mines, so as to not pay much in taxes to the SPQR.
Terry Jones' Barbarian states that Trajan took so much gold from Dacia that the bottom dropped out of the market. However, he only provides sources for the direct quotes, so I can't tell where his evidence came from.
From what I remember, Trajan brought back 250 tons of gold and twice that much silver from his initial conquest alone. I know relatively little about the Roman economy, but that sounds sufficient to destroy gold's value.
Also, Roman mines were state-owned, so taxation would not be an issue.
Trajan's physician Statilius Crito wrote that Trajan brought back 5,000,000 lbs of gold and 10,000,000 lbs of silver in his conquest. Many contemporary authors have disputed this number and at least reduced it down to 500,000 lbs of gold and 1,000,000 lbs silver.
In response to to Terry Jones' book - Trajan actually reduced the gold standard for his currency to the Neronian value i.e. instead of 40 aureii being made from a pound of gold, 45 were made instead. Also his silver denarii averaged between 80-90% silver per coin as compared to Domitian's + 90% per coin. The general trend after Trajan was to continue the gold standard up until... Commodus - wherein it began to drop dramatically? I can't recall but it was some time during the Severan dynasty. These numbers are from Sture Bolin's State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 AD. 1958. While I have read as well that the introduction of so great an amount of gold devalued the currency for a time, it didn't induce the princeps to readjust the standard by which aureii were minted