I am currently reading National Geographic's History magazine, March/April 2017 edition, about Caesar's Crossing in which he initiated the civil war against the optimate faction in the Senate and their allies, namely Pompey the Great. According to the reading, leading up to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C., while Ceasar was facing pressure from his political rivals to step down from his position as governor of Gaul and disband his army in 50 B.C. (which would strip Caesar of the immunity his official position gave him as well as disarm him of his nearly unequaled military clout), he decided to stay on as governor, announcing to stand for election to become consul for a second time. This would foil Pompey and his optimate allies' plot to take Caesar to court under accusations of corruption and abuses of power during his time in Gaul which would effectively kill Caesar's political career. This caused Caesar's enemies to scramble to increase pressure on him, and they reiterated in the Senate, that since his military campaign was over, he must disband his army and a new governor ought to be elected to replace him. Caesar responded by moving his military forces into the north of Italy while expanding his power in Rome. According to the magazine, some scant research and my own knowledge of ancient Roman history, Caesar bribed many of his enemies. In fact, he managed to buy off the consul Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus with a massive down payment of nine million denarii in return for the consul's promise not to support any initiatives against him during his remaining term of office.

Caesar accumulated massive amounts of wealth during his conquest of Gaul which made him the richest man in Rome, and by some accounts, the richest man in history. But still, this got me thinking... how much is nine million denarii in 50-49 B.C.? I tried looking for some past threads that could answer this question in this sub and found little. I understand that the weight of a denarius changed multiple times, and was debased at different percentages of purity multiple times throughout its history of being issued by the Roman Republic/Empire, but I did find (through Wikipedia) that in 44 B.C. the Roman denarii was 3.9g and was 95-98% pure silver. If silver is worth 47 cents per gram today, that would make the denarii worth about $1.88, but assuming it was 95% pure, that would make it $1.79 (rounded) today.

​

That would mean Caesar bribed Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus $16,110,000 which seems absolutely insane to me. Given that astronomical bribe, this makes me believe Caesar was easily giving out bribes of lesser amounts too, and maybe other bribes of similar value.

​

Did I answer my own question here? Am I missing something here? Basically, I want to know if this is accurate. This seems like an insane amount of wealth for the time period, and maybe I simply have not been able to grasp the sheer amount of wealth that was floating around in higher circles at the time.