Traces of Complexity. Monetary Circulation in Mediolanum during the Fifth Century AD: Persistence and Change

The paper presents a large number of coin finds brought to light in Milan (Northern Italy) during archaeological excavations in contexts datable between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the sixth century AD, some unpublished or never before analysed from a contextual point of view. The contextual analysis of the finds from the city allowed me to reconstruct the dynamics of small change circulation in Mediolanum between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. My paper aims to highlight the differences between the circulation patterns of Milan, where coins continued to circulate at least until the middle of the sixth century and metal scraps do not appear in the local market pool as para-monetary objects (so far?), and the situation foreseen in the territories north of the Alpine watershed, as illustrated by several scholars during this congress. An element of similarity, however, is the phenomenon of coin cutting, which, even in Mediolanum, was practised in this period. It is therefore plausible that the city, until AD 402 one of the imperial seats of the Roman Empire, probably still reached by monetary flows from central Italy thanks to its geographical location, experienced a greater and more profound persistence of monetarization than places in the areas of the Rhine limes.