> In the era of Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. to 14 A.D.), a Roman centurion was paid 15,000 sestertii. Given that one gold aureus equaled 1,000 sestertii and given there was eight grams of gold in an aureus, the pay comes to 38.58 ounces of gold
Today, 38.58oz of gold would be a salary of $156K/yr.
If we do the same for silver, it comes out to about 470oz of silver. So $23,500/yr.
If we compare that to a US Army E-8 (say 80k/yr), we can argue that gold has doubled its value relative to labor and silver has dropped to almost a quarter.
https://people.duke.edu/~charvey/Media/2013/Hurriyet_May_2_2...
> In the era of Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. to 14 A.D.), a Roman centurion was paid 15,000 sestertii. Given that one gold aureus equaled 1,000 sestertii and given there was eight grams of gold in an aureus, the pay comes to 38.58 ounces of gold
Today, 38.58oz of gold would be a salary of $156K/yr.
If we do the same for silver, it comes out to about 470oz of silver. So $23,500/yr.
If we compare that to a US Army E-8 (say 80k/yr), we can argue that gold has doubled its value relative to labor and silver has dropped to almost a quarter.