87 AJN Second Series 23 (2011) pp. 87–152 © 2011 he American Numismatic Society his paper argues that the contrasted degrees of iduciarity and metallism of the base coinage between the Greek states and Rome were essentially the re- sult of practical considerations linked to its vulnerability to counterfeiting, rather than the result of diferent conceptions of the idea of money. Similarly, the gradual decline of the weight of Roman bronze coinage during the later Republic, traditionally explained as the consequence of a growing acceptance of iduciary money, was essentially the mechanical product of a fall in the market value of silver as a commodity. he consequence of this reading ul- timately leads to a reassessment of some the inancial and political develop- ments of the later Republic. By the fourth century bc, most Greek cities—with the peculiar exception of Ath- ens—had replaced their small silver fractional coinage with larger bronze coins. Since bronze was about hundred times cheaper than silver, these bronze coins were clearly overvalued. In that sense, Greek bronze coinage became a token sys- tem based on public trust. he Greek cities of Sicily and southern Italy pioneered this move. A little further north, bronze objects exchanged at full value by weight represented the standard form of money inside the mostly unmonetized econo- mies of central Italy. When Rome started to issue its own currency by the end of the fourth century bc, it minted both token and heavy bronze coins, apparently following at the same time the two very diferent patterns of chartalism and metal- lism. At the onset of the Second Punic War, the Roman standard heavy bronze sys- tem lost weight —very rapidly—while Rome stopped minting its Greek-inspired Gilles Bransbourg* Fides et Pecunia Numerata Chartalism and Metallism in the Roman World Part 1: The Republic *he American Numismatic Society and New York University, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (bransbourg@numismatics.org).