Reddit mentions of Money in Classical Antiquity (Key Themes in Ancient History)

I hear you. It's totally natural for a modern person to ask for a conversion rate because we're so used to being able to do that across modern countries, or for like the last hundred years of inflation. But it takes paragraphs and paragraphs to even give a basic overview of why the question doesn't even make sense for the ancient world. And if you want a complete answer for "what was X amount of money worth in antiquity," the best answer I personally know of is a whole book.

It's a much easier karma farm to just do a quick calculation from a single commodity price in a single place, and call that ratio a fact. So like, in one specific bar in Pompeii, we know a cup of common wine cost one as. And down at my local Olive Garden a glass of wine is four bucks. So therefore an as was worth $4, and since there were sixteen of them to the denarius, a denarius was worth exactly $64. Boom--frontpage me!