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MICKWITZ, G., Geld und Wirtschaft im Römischen Reich des vierten Jahrhunderts n. Chr. Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1965. Photomechanical reprint ed.1932. XV,232p. Original red gilt titled cloth. Ex libris stamp TR on title page. Upper corner pp.first pages till p.XV slightly creased. Some pencil underlinings and strikes from TR. (Rare). ‘This is an important contribution to the social and economic history of the fourth century A.D. The author is dissatisfied with the generalisation which sums up its financial system as merely a retrogression from the money economy of an advanced civilisation to the more primitive stage of natural economy, and he sets himself to prove by an exhaustive examination of all available sources of evidence that such a view needs serious modification. Foremost (…) in importance is the witness of the papyri, and a very valuable feature of the book is a list of them arranged chronologically (…). The list fills 38 pages and contains much new material. But all the other evidence, literary and epigraphic, is equally at the author’s command. (…) The ground covered by the author in leading up to, and working out, his main thesis can best be seen by an enumeration of the divisions into which his works falls: a preliminary discussion on the price definition of the various economic systems is followed by chapters dealing with the coinage up to the time of Diocletian; Diocletian’s reform and edict of maximum prices; the development of the system of Diocletian through Constantine; money-values in Egypt after 300; the effect of the money crisis in Egypt; private economy outside Egypt; the natural economy of the State and its result, among which the extreme development of rural serfdom and its counterpart, the hereditary guilt are shown to be inherent in the system.’ (J.W.E. PEARCE in The Journal of Roman Studies, 1933, p.86). € 65.00 (Antiquarian)