structural:summarization
Ancient Europe

Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE was followed by one of the earliest documented inflation periods in the ancient world. Rapid increases in the quantity of money or in the overall money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history, changing with different forms of money used. For instance, when silver was used as currency, the government could collect silver coins, melt them down, mix them with other, less valuable metals such as copper or lead and reissue them at the same nominal value, a process known as debasement. At the ascent of Nero as Roman emperor in AD 54, the denarius contained more than 90% silver, but by the 270s hardly any silver was left. By diluting the silver with other metals, the government could issue more coins without increasing the amount of silver used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way, the government profits from an increase in seigniorage. This practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and services as before. These goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Again at the end of the third century CE during the reign of Diocletian, the Roman Empire experienced rapid inflation.